ESPN Layoffs

[TriCitySam]

Don't care about most of the folks getting laid off....but Suzy Kolber? She was one I respected. How about Michael A. Smith? Lay that jackass off.

[Old but Slow]

I understand that they cut Todd McShay, too. That is ridiculous.

[c_hawkbob]

The only reason I watched ESPN pregames was for Hass. Now it's back to NFLN, CBS and Fox.

[trents]

ESPN is owned by Disney now. Disney has lost tons of money recently.

https://www.sportingnews.com/us/other-s ... xwbh3oerxo

[Aseahawkfan]

Cable TV is dying. Many of these old media companies are struggling to maintain their size given how easy it is to find the same information online, on-demand from a variety of free sources. How do you compete with the free?

Main people keeping ESPN and other such entities alive are the old folks, the boomers who haven't cut the cord yet. I've completely cut the cord. I don't pay for cable, never will again. I get the majority of my information scouring the net or Youtube websites easily as good as what is offered on ESPN, NFLN, or any of the cable media.

End run for cable TV as the boomer generation dies off and the younger generation gets all their information via phone from streaming services and web sites. Those companies that can't adjust will go bye, bye as well.

Disney has enough content and their parks to survive, but they need to build a profitable streaming model and service and force their customers onto it or wait until they die off and the younger generation becomes the majority who don't want to watch too many commercials or wait for their content. They want it now, streamed on whatever device they are using. Adapt or die.

[obiken]

Ironic isnt ASHF, I remember in the early 80's that people got cable mainly for ESPN, now their getting hammered by FOX and others. Any conformation on Todd McShay?

[NorthHawk]

McShay will turn up somewhere - maybe on the NFL Network at draft time but probably on his own podcast or similar. Maybe both.
He's got a name in the NFL world so that's to his advantage and I would expect to see him as a guest on some other shows from time to time.

[Old but Slow]

Somebody needs to bring back the back-and-forth between McShay and Kiper. That was some of the best draft info and entertainment.

[RiverDog]

Don't care about most of the folks getting laid off....but Suzy Kolber? She was one I respected. How about Michael A. Smith? Lay that jackass off.

Yeah, ever since that slobbering drunk Joe Namath told her on national TV that he wanted to give her a kiss, an incident that she handled like a true professional, I loved Suzy.

What ASF said is exactly right. If you go back in history, about every 30-40 years, the entertainment model has changed. It started out in the 20's with radio, changed in the 50's-60's with TV, changed in the 80's with cable TV, and now it's changing again to internet streaming. ESPN/Disney are behind the curve. Apple TV, Amazon Prime, YouTube, and others like them are at the cutting edge of technology while ESPN, Fox, CBS, and NBC will be left in the dust if they don't adapt to the changing marketplace.

[Aseahawkfan]

I'm currently invested in Disney. They are having trouble monetizing Disney+ to the same level as their legacy cable business. Legacy cable business is slowly dying off as that source of income drops. Their streaming service isn't as profitable as the legacy cable business. So it will be quite an interesting process as it is much harder to protect content nowadays. Lots of competition from Youtubers and smaller media like Pro Football Talk.

Reason I stay invested in Disney as it adjusts and its price drops is its content is extremely strong as no one has those properties and you have an entire young generation raised on Marvel and Star Wars and Disney and Pixar animated films and their park experience is not replaceable with a high moat as it is not cheap to build those parks or that level of content dominance. Not sure ESPN will survive as sports media such a democratized industry now with Youtubers giving as high quality info as TV personalities and free web sites see stats and the like. They may have to sell off or jettison that business as it has no strength going forward.

[TriCitySam]

I get the need for Disney to get back in the black ASAP. Used to be ESPN was on every package, now with the ability to select which channels you want in your package, it has no doubt hammered ESPN's revenue.

[RiverDog]

I get the need for Disney to get back in the black ASAP. Used to be ESPN was on every package, now with the ability to select which channels you want in your package, it has no doubt hammered ESPN's revenue.

There's more competition even within the cable TV market, with NFL Network, MLB Network, NASCAR, etc. All the leagues have their own channels dedicated to their own sport. Even the major college conferences have their own channels. I don't give a rip about the NBA, NHL, and to a lesser degree MLB, so rather than turning on ESPN, I'll watch NFL Network which is always talking about football. Same goes for the radio side. I have satellite radio, and I hardly ever listen to ESPN. I don't even have them on my presets.

[jshawaii22]

This isn't about cutting ESPN's budget and that it would somehow affect Disney's bottom line.
The allmighty $$$ spent on on-air talent was and still is idiotic. Besides, if you look, they just signed Pat McAfee to a 85 million contract. What budget?

However, Disney IS trying to save money all over their theme parks. One example is understanding Disney knew that getting out of Florida's multi-billion expansion was a blessing not a "political move". Simply put, over the last 2 years Disney is seeing a huge loss of Disney+, far more then the loss of ESPN's cable subscribers. That's the big ouch right now as well as a 'public' revolt over some of Disney's practices and cost to be in their "clubs".

AS for the layoffs, the worst of them is still employed...Mel Kiper, so if he's still there, we know management is just throwing darts to a wall.
"The Seahawks draft was the worst I've ever been around in 20 years" (or something close) said from the floor of the draft after we drafted Bruce Irving, Bobby W and Russell, 1-2-3...

[NorthHawk]

Kiper wasn't the only one to slam that draft. There were numerous print articles saying much the same thing.
The value to me of people like Kiper and McShay are they often prior to the draft talk about players I hadn't considered before so I then start looking at the replays of games and other articles to find out more about them.

[Aseahawkfan]

This isn't about cutting ESPN's budget and that it would somehow affect Disney's bottom line.
The allmighty $$$ spent on on-air talent was and still is idiotic. Besides, if you look, they just signed Pat McAfee to a 85 million contract. What budget?

However, Disney IS trying to save money all over their theme parks. One example is understanding Disney knew that getting out of Florida's multi-billion expansion was a blessing not a "political move". Simply put, over the last 2 years Disney is seeing a huge loss of Disney+, far more then the loss of ESPN's cable subscribers. That's the big ouch right now as well as a 'public' revolt over some of Disney's practices and cost to be in their "clubs".

AS for the layoffs, the worst of them is still employed...Mel Kiper, so if he's still there, we know management is just throwing darts to a wall.
"The Seahawks draft was the worst I've ever been around in 20 years" (or something close) said from the floor of the draft after we drafted Bruce Irving, Bobby W and Russell, 1-2-3...

Disney+ is expanding well enough. Big problem is its legacy cable business was far more profitable than its streaming business. Streaming is expensive compared to licensing content to cable networks. So you have a legacy cable business with dying revenue and an expanding streaming business that is not adequately replacing those revenues. So Disney is still trying to figure out how to best monetize their large content library in the age of streaming. A lot of these content owners who decided to try their individual streaming services are finding out streaming is expensive and doesn't generate the revenue of their legacy cable business licensing revenue.

The days of a huge number of channels and tons of advertising and cable revenues going to these shows are ending. Many of these companies are trying to figure out what to do.

[MackStrongIsMyHero]

I avoid the panels pre, mid, and postgame. I don't understand why there needs to be 8 "experts" talking about the game. The insights typically aren't earth shattering, and you don't need 8 people to spew out these golden nuggets of observation. It all just feels like a everyone trying to get there $0.02 in to justify their existence on the panel. Oversaturation, and perhaps this is the correction.

[RiverDog]

I avoid the panels pre, mid, and postgame. I don't understand why there needs to be 8 "experts" talking about the game. The insights typically aren't earth shattering, and you don't need 8 people to spew out these golden nuggets of observation. It all just feels like a everyone trying to get there $0.02 in to justify their existence on the panel. Oversaturation, and perhaps this is the correction.

IMO the reason for the big panels is to get as many recognizable names as possible to attract viewers. They're not concerned about the quality of their broadcasts so long as viewers tune in.

It will be interesting to see how this all shakes out. Sports coverage is changing before our eyes. We now have two streaming services, Amazon Prime with TNF and YouTube for Sunday Ticket, that have exclusive contracts for live games. Don't be surprised if MNF and/or SNF eventually make their way to internet streaming. Are we heading for a PPV type set-up of the type that killed boxing?

[trents]

Concerning sports broadcasts moving from cable to streaming, I note that some of the Mariner's games are only available via Apple TV, not being broadcast those days on Root Sports, the usual outlet for Mariner's games. This is just for several games over the course of a season. It's like the M's are testing the waters.

The thing that scares me about this trend is that we will get hammered by a multitude of streaming content subscription fees in order to be able to watch the variety of sports and games that we now have access to via cable. The vast majority of what I watch on TV is sports and if I have to pay subscription fees to six or eight different streaming content services in order to cover the bases it's going to be spendy. If it weren't for sports, I would have cut the cable a long time ago.

[RiverDog]

Concerning sports broadcasts moving from cable to streaming, I note that some of the Mariner's games are only available via Apple TV, not being broadcast those days on Root Sports, the usual outlet for Mariner's games. This is just for several games over the course of a season. It's like the M's are testing the waters.

The thing that scares me about this trend is that we will get hammered by a multitude of streaming content subscription fees in order to be able to watch the variety of sports and games that we now have access to via cable. The vast majority of what I watch on TV is sports and if I have to pay subscription fees to six or eight different streaming content services in order to cover the bases it's going to be spendy. If it weren't for sports, I would have cut the cable a long time ago.

I think it's a fair assumption that the NFL will be keeping a close eye on viewership. They're not going to go the route that boxing did and gain a few more bucks by going with PPV at the expense of total viewership. They also have baseball as a template when they moved weekday World Series games to night broadcasts back in the early 70's and lost a generation of younger fans that had to go to school the next day. If I'm an NFL executive, I'd be just as, if not more concerned, with viewership as I would be with revenue stream.

One of the reasons they gave Amazon Prime the TNF games is that they had the largest number of current subscribers, over 200 million. If they were to give a contract for SNF or MNF to a streaming service, say Apple TV, it wouldn't surprise me if they had a clause in it that would allow them to break the contract if they didn't meet certain viewership targets.

Sunday Ticket is a bit of an outlier. Even if you were a DTV customer, you still had to pay a premium to get it, so in that regard, nothing much has changed except that it got more expensive. I wouldn't expect total viewership for that package to fall significantly.

[Oly]

I just use the streams of...questionable legality. I have Prime for the photos and quick shipping (living in a rural area, that shipping is critical to get half of the stuff we need), but I'm not going to sign up for a dozen streaming services, not at the prices they charge anyway. Early on, we did sign up for a few services, but we don't watch much so nothing makes financial sense. My family of four watches maybe one movie, four or five TV episodes, and one or two sports events per week. And it's spread over so many services that none of it makes sense. If they could trim their budget by trimming unneeded anchors (and who TF thought McAffee was worth 85m?!) they could pull people like me with cheaper plans that maybe had tokens to watch X pieces of content per month. But when the analysis is shite, the broadcast quality is bad, and I only watch a few episodes, I'm just not going to pay what they are asking.

[RiverDog]

I just use the streams of...questionable legality. I have Prime for the photos and quick shipping (living in a rural area, that shipping is critical to get half of the stuff we need), but I'm not going to sign up for a dozen streaming services, not at the prices they charge anyway. Early on, we did sign up for a few services, but we don't watch much so nothing makes financial sense. My family of four watches maybe one movie, four or five TV episodes, and one or two sports events per week. And it's spread over so many services that none of it makes sense. If they could trim their budget by trimming unneeded anchors (and who TF thought McAffee was worth 85m?!) they could pull people like me with cheaper plans that maybe had tokens to watch X pieces of content per month. But when the analysis is shite, the broadcast quality is bad, and I only watch a few episodes, I'm just not going to pay what they are asking.

I get my TV feed/internet through Charter Spectrum and bought the package that includes the Red Zone. On game days, I'll multi task, watch the Red Zone on my big screen while I watch the Seahawks on my tablet. I already had Amazon Prime as we do the bulk of our online purchases on Amazon, not because I'm loyal to the company but because I can easily find the make/model of what I bought 10+ years ago and find owner's manuals, re-order, etc without having to remember where I bought it, plus their credit card gives me 5% cash back on any purchases on their site, and I like their library of documentaries.

I doubt that I'll ever sign up for another streaming service just for something like SNF or MNF. I can go to a friend's house or to our local bar and watch a game if I deem one worthy enough of such an effort. But as I said earlier, I'm pretty sure that the NFL isn't going to make a move that would reduce viewership as it has long term implications.

[MackStrongIsMyHero]

IMO the reason for the big panels is to get as many recognizable names as possible to attract viewers. They're not concerned about the quality of their broadcasts so long as viewers tune in.

It will be interesting to see how this all shakes out. Sports coverage is changing before our eyes. We now have two streaming services, Amazon Prime with TNF and YouTube for Sunday Ticket, that have exclusive contracts for live games. Don't be surprised if MNF and/or SNF eventually make their way to internet streaming. Are we heading for a PPV type set-up of the type that killed boxing?

No doubt that is true, but it doesn't do anything for me and perhaps not for others as well. I'm curious if there's any way for them to see how many viewers they get for pre-game, half-time, and post-game. I don't try to turn it on until kickoff. I'll also be looking to see if big panels are still a thing this coming season.

I'm likely going to get YouTube TV and Sunday ticket. Youtube TV would cover the ThNF (when its NBC), SNF, and MNF. If it turns into paying to stream those games, I'll have decision to make.

[NorthHawk]

I don't watch much of those pre game panels either. They are usually wrong in their predictions and mostly focus on a few big name teams which ends up with them regurgitating information we've heard over and over the previous few weeks.
I will have it on in the background in the event they discuss Seattle (which is rare) but it's mostly white noise to me before the game actually starts.

[RiverDog]

Likewise, I don't watch the pregame stuff, either. I get enough predictions and analysis during the week, especially in blogs and forums like this one.

Mack, I'll be curious as to what your experience with YouTube is. I watched a number of games on Amazon Prime last year and really liked their broadcast. They had a feature where you could superimpose stats, isolate and draw lines of receivers on their routes sort of like grease board style, stuff that I didn't take advantage of but might have been interesting for others.

This might be a little off topic, but back in the 70's-80's, when I watched Seahawk games, I'd mute the volume on the TV and turn on the local radio broadcast. The radio broadcast was a second or so ahead of the TV, but there wasn't so great a difference as to make it unwatchable. Pete Gross was a fabulous announcer, very good in his description of how the play evolved from the moment the offense broke the huddle until the whistle blew. It's a great way for someone just learning the game as the radio announcer has to paint a picture for their audience and makes the terminology easier to understand: "Seahawks line up with split backs behind Krieg and two receivers to the left with Largent in the slot who now goes in motion left to right through the formation." Plus, Gross and his color man traveled with the team, so that had good insights they could share with the audience that the network TV guys weren't privy to. Plus, being that they were heavily biased Seahawk fans, it was always more exciting when Gross, in his high-pitched voice, would scream "Touchdown, Seahawks!"

But nowadays, the radio broadcast is so far ahead of even over-the-air television that it's not a practical way to watch a game. Somebody somewhere mentioned that there might be a streaming service that you could use to induce a delay on the radio broadcast that could sync it with the TV. If anyone knows of such a service, I'd sure appreciate them sharing their info with me.

[trents]

Again, maybe off topic a bit but I've also noticed that the box scores and play by play on ESPN.com is significantly ahead of the telecast. I was just reading yesterday that live televised event content is actually previewed on the fly before being broadcast.