ESPN Layoffs

Fryowa said:
They don’t have to hit the reset button and it does not suck for them. They’re all rich enough to not have to work again if they don’t want to; these announcing jobs are cushy hobbies for these folks. Sorry.
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Exactly. If they've been bad with their $ and blew it all then I'm even less sorry for them not more.. Geesh.
 
ESPN is owned by Disney and Disney has been bleeding money for several years and has begun a HUGE purge. This is just a part of the purge.
 
Knight78 said:
ESPN is owned by Disney and Disney has been bleeding money for several years and has begun a HUGE purge. This is just a part of the purge.
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Yeah they really miscalculated on their business model. Granted things do change fast these days but man ESPN went all in on hiring so many opinion giving talking heads and having so many shows that do nothing but that. They saturated that market to the Nth degree. Folks are just over so much of that. I can form my own opinions. Save those shows for the radio to me that's better left for that forum. Give me the news. Give me the highlights. Report what's going on and show me the live games. They don't need to do much more then that for me.
 
okeefe4prez said:
It's both caring less and how they consume it. Sports is the only thing holding the cable bundle together but the commitments these companies have made are greater than the revenues they are drawing from the content licenses they bought. That's why Bally went under, NBC got rid of NBCSN and ESPN is slashing their variable costs. Fans think they want a direct to consumer model, but that's just going to substantially jack up prices for those who still watch and harm the future prospects even more.

Disney had a real opportunity to create a one-stop shop for college sports that they could have packaged onto a direct to consumer platform, but they failed to get the Big Ten, which is necessary top tier content to get a program like that to work.
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Now that you say it. The ONLY reason I have a streaming or live package is because of any live sports I would want to watch. If that card wasn't in play, I could care less about live programming. I'd get my news from the internet and pretty much view YouTube for anything else. I rarely now view any shows from live programming. I used to watch Discovery Channel quite a bit but now at night finding myself just loading up YouTube or podcasts.
 
Hawkfnntn said:
Yeah they really miscalculated on their business model. Granted things do change fast these days but man ESPN went all in on hiring so many opinion giving talking heads and having so many shows that do nothing but that. They saturated that market to the Nth degree. Folks are just over so much of that. I can form my own opinions. Save those shows for the radio to me that's better left for that forum. Give me the news. Give me the highlights. Report what's going on and show me the live games. They don't need to do much more then that for me.
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I liked ESPN in the 80's when they would literally show many odd or different live sports. That was what was interesting. When they started the Shock Jock stuff and opinion shows, I shut off. I can't listen to just blabber.
 
MelroseHawkins said:
I liked ESPN in the 80's when they would literally show many odd or different live sports. That was what was interesting. When they started the Shock Jock stuff and opinion shows, I shut off. I can't listen to just blabber.
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Yeah I was little in the 80s and didn't have cable. I didn't see ESPN much at all till the 90s when I'd spend time at my gparents or friends houses. They do so much speculation on guys changing teams in all sports that that's most of what they seem to care about now. I'd rather watch games of something then talking heads giving their two cents about NFL football in the middle of their off season.
 
Hawkfnntn said:
Yeah they really miscalculated on their business model. Granted things do change fast these days but man ESPN went all in on hiring so many opinion giving talking heads and having so many shows that do nothing but that. They saturated that market to the Nth degree. Folks are just over so much of that. I can form my own opinions. Save those shows for the radio to me that's better left for that forum. Give me the news. Give me the highlights. Report what's going on and show me the live games. They don't need to do much more then that for me.
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I feel like the rise of podcasters has driven part of this as well. I can listen to hyper-local podcasters who only focus on Iowa or the B1G, rather than listen to some talking head on ESPN blab on and MAYBE mention Iowa for 15 seconds.
 
Chickenlounge said:
I feel like the rise of podcasters has driven part of this as well. I can listen to hyper-local podcasters who only focus on Iowa or the B1G, rather than listen to some talking head on ESPN blab on and MAYBE mention Iowa for 15 seconds.
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The hyper-specialization of media that has become available bince the advent of the internet has really hurt legacy media, who is trying to cast a wide net and be all things to all potential customers. I get all of my Iowa sports news from here and that is the only sport I care about. I had to drive to a few hours for a work trip with a younger colleague and this dude had a freaking podcast that was 2 hours long about Formula One and they basically only talked about one race, which was shorter than the podcast. It's insane, but people have customized their media consumption and mainstream crap is on its deathbed. I think it's absolutely hilarious.
 
Chickenlounge said:
I feel like the rise of podcasters has driven part of this as well. I can listen to hyper-local podcasters who only focus on Iowa or the B1G, rather than listen to some talking head on ESPN blab on and MAYBE mention Iowa for 15 seconds.
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Great point. Very much so. You tube and podcasters have done exactly that. I think a lot of fans are in their bubbles of who they like. Iowa fans aren't wanting to hear about Ole Misses recruiting in the secondary. But Ole Miss has fans that sure do. There's a market for that. The national guys usually just talk about the top 3 to 5 teams maybe 10 tops unless there's a relevant new story being brought up.
 
Haven't watched ESPN in over 15 years except for live sports. They used to be highlights and sports coverage until they devolved into the unwatchable bunch of talking heads they are now. Fire all these commentators, opinion makers, non-sports related content and show sports again.
 
I'm assuming they are doing this to help pay for the Pat McAfee deal. Also when that takes effect that's 3-4 hours of content daily meaning they need less talking heads pretend arguing.
 
cohawkeye said:
I started hating ESPN once Beth Mowins was doing all Iowa games.
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Wow, do you not remember that era where Pam Ward was the announcer for all of the 11 AM games on ESPN 2, which was Iowa virtually every other week? That was before Beth Mowins.
 
dahlhawk said:
Haven't watched ESPN in over 15 years except for live sports. They used to be highlights and sports coverage until they devolved into the unwatchable bunch of talking heads they are now. Fire all these commentators, opinion makers, non-sports related content and show sports again.
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I'd rather watch reruns of strong man competitions from 1998 than any talking head show. Remember, they used to run Sportscenter a few times in a row in the mornings, then a steady stream of weight lifting, strong man and obscure sports shows until lunchtime, at which point they'd run another Sportscenter?
 
I remember waiting out Magnuss Ver Magnusson tossing telephone poles before the lunchtime Sportcenter!!
 
99topdawg said:
David Pollack was my favorite. Being a multiple time All-American at Georgia, he gives very good analysis and insight. He'll easily find a job. If nothing else, the SEC Network. Wait, never mind. He just got fired from there.
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Gross….but the again Iowa is trying to join the deep thinking Deep South these days
 
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