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ESPN, which laid off 100 people this week, has a multitude of problems, but the basic one is this: It pays too much for content and costs too much for consumers.
That didn't used to matter because, thanks to the way the cable industry "bundled" channels, cable customers were forced to pay for it even if they never watched it. Now, however, as the cable bundle slowly disintegrates, it matters a lot.
[...] But it's a pipe dream to think that ESPN will ever make the kind of profits ($6.4 billion in 2014) that it once did, for two reasons. First, as is the case with so many other industries, the internet has both shined a light on the flaws of the cable model and exploited them. What was the main flaw of the cable model? It was that consumers had to pay for channels they never watched.
And now they don't.
It turns out that there were lots of people, including sports fans, who resented having to pay for the most expensive channel in the bundle. The popularity of streaming led to "cord cutting," but it also caused cable companies to begin offering less expensive "skinny bundles," some of which don't include ESPN.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 02 2017, @02:59PM (31 children)
About the only thing people watch live TV for is sports, and sports fans are willing to pay. All the other channels, cable or otherwise, will be forced to go through major changes, due to newcomers like Netflix and others, but ESPN will survive.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by WillR on Tuesday May 02 2017, @03:18PM (18 children)
(Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Tuesday May 02 2017, @03:47PM (16 children)
There's an interesting analogy to the weather channel here.
Everyone wants weather reports (and sports). Nobody wants to provide it. But here, watch this talk show instead! And then feign shock when the viewers tune out, get their kicks off the internet or whatever.
News is the same. Everyone says the want news. Some people seek out actual news. Nobody wants to provide it, heres some propaganda and infotainment instead. Did you hear what some Kardashian said? Now act surprised when people tune out.
Its very interesting that pr0n is the only "honest" segment of the media where people get what they want. Ya gotta respect pr0n for that. You want "naughty SN posters" you tune into the "naughty SN poster network" you see "naughty SN posters in action". Not a talk show about global trade policy or Bill Nye the poz guy's TV show or whatever else is getting shoveled. High res T -n- A video delivery, the only thing Americans are good at. Everything else you're getting a panel discussion on global warming.
(Score: 2) by fraxinus-tree on Tuesday May 02 2017, @03:56PM (3 children)
Even porn disappoints these days. Because of just the same reasons.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday May 02 2017, @04:36PM (1 child)
What? I don't believe it. GIF or it didn't happen. Even a pr0n version of "panel discussion on global warming" could be somewhat on topic "Things are really heating up in the studio today, ha ha ha".
(Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Tuesday May 02 2017, @07:08PM
Have you watched playboy channel the last couple of years? Last time I did they had a friggin' talkshow with three people (1M, 2F) and one of the females was topless and the topics was boring (something about trends and fashion).
Seriously - it wasn't even artistic or sensual - it was essentially any boring low budget talkshow that tried too hard.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Tuesday May 02 2017, @06:15PM
I can agree with this. I was talking with a few friends about this recently as well. It's either casting couch or horribly overacted crap with fake moans. Some of the more amateur casting couch stuff is good. Though, a majority of the stuff I like to watch is actual people having sex they recorded themselves using a phone. Thats real life.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 02 2017, @04:03PM (10 children)
You've got it backwards. EVERYONE would love to provide it, but nobody wants to pay for it. The news rooms would give their right arm to be able to go back in time because they all yearn to be Woodward or Bernstein. But the public doesn't want news, they WANT Kardashian stories, AND they want it free. Look at all the pissing and moaning we get here when something is behind a paywall. OMG! Those EVIL bastards wanting to charge me money. Then the same people go an bitch about how bad news coverage is. Just where do they think the people who cover news comes from, just free from the Internet? News reporting costs money, and it turns out that most of the connoisseurs of fine news and reporting actually find fine news and reporting to be boring, so they go to where the Kardashian stories are.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 02 2017, @04:38PM (3 children)
I like the BBC model where the public funds news reporting directly and is independent of the government. Unbiased reporting is too important to leave to commercial interests or billionaire endowments. Those guys should go and buy a celebrity event or a basketball team and fill up the middle and back pages. The front pages need to be THE news.
(Score: 2) by n1 on Tuesday May 02 2017, @06:33PM (1 child)
The BBC is mostly independent of government.
Their unbiased reporting is not always ideal either, since they wont actually do much in the way of investigating themselves. The way I explain it usually goes like this: "The government insists it's not raining. The opposition says it is raining. The BBC reporter declined to look out of the window for fear of showing bias." ... They show both sides of the story, usually weighted more toward the government position as even though they are technically independent, they are still under pressure and threat from government to reign them in, constantly. They repeat government press releases as they are expected to, but they almost never look into the details of the proposals themselves, just report the spin, they have to wait for some other third party to provide that balance, usually after the fact in a 'what we know now' kind of a way.
http://www.spyculture.com/clandestime-103-mi5-censorship-panorama/ [spyculture.com]
A clip from "Yes, Minister" which pains me greatly as it's as valid as ever https://vimeo.com/155307641 [vimeo.com]
More recently:
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/mar/13/government-choose-bbc-board-john-whittingdale [theguardian.com]
Don't get me wrong, I think the BBC does provide a valuable service and are often the best of a bad bunch of media corporations, but they are not truly independent from government and they are not unbiased. Their bias just changes depending on the political agenda of the day.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Tuesday May 02 2017, @07:15PM
Kind of like the CBC: sort-of-independent: they get funding from the government, but there are a lot of Canadians who put pressure on the Government of the day to keep funding it.
But independent and unbiased? Better than CNN, but there is quite a bit of bias (liberal) still.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Tuesday May 02 2017, @08:07PM
I like the BBC model where the public funds news reporting directly and is independent of the government
But the reporting is funded by the government, so it is not independent of the government. And in fact there are people who believe the BBC is biased in favor of the government:
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 02 2017, @05:01PM
Vapid news programs on TV drove me away from TV news. Tabloid quality reporting is what finally convinced me to install an ad blocker.
(Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Tuesday May 02 2017, @07:23PM (2 children)
Well, that is also because we are being asked to pay for it sight unseen. If it is at least at the level of Forbes, Technology Review or Smithsonian one would consiser paying for it if they had a sensible (no subscription, no javascript, no third-party crap needing to be installed, semi-anonymous payment) payment model.
However since most articles online are crap one would be hardpressed to even consider paying for the unknown.
(Score: 2) by AndyTheAbsurd on Tuesday May 02 2017, @07:52PM (1 child)
Sadly, the currently-in-place payment systems make it impossible to turn a profit by charging ten or twenty-five cents for access to a single article. If the credit card networks would further lower their fees - or if a proper micropayments service that allowed websites not be net-negaive when charging those kinds of prices would gain traction - we might be able to pay for our online article access per article rather than having to subscribe or buy far more articles than we need.
Please note my username before responding. You may have been trolled.
(Score: 2) by cafebabe on Wednesday May 03 2017, @04:22PM
RFC2616, Section 10.4.3 reserves HTTP response code 402 for micropayment. All that is required is a web server and web browser which implements a common micropayment system plus users who are willing to go web browsing with their digital wallet open. Given the idiocy of one dollar apps, there must be a one billion dollar market by now.
1702845791×2
(Score: 3, Flamebait) by jmorris on Tuesday May 02 2017, @11:38PM (1 child)
The news rooms would give their right arm to be able to go back in time because they all yearn to be Woodward or Bernstein.
You are half right. You are wrong that they want to be journalists, hold the powerful to account, etc. We just had eight years of an utterly corrupt and lawless administration that created an opportunity for a Pulitzer Prize pretty much on a monthly basis. Nobody even really tried to claim one. None. To the current people with the monopoly on the microphones, journalism isn't a profession it is a tactic. 90+% are on Team Blue and simply want to win at all cost and the few on Team Red (FNC, Breitbart, Drudge) are essentially the same way. And the few indy journalists who try to actually report get zero airplay for their reporting.
You are right that they all want to be "Woodward or Bernstein" in the sense of getting the scalp of an "Enemy of the Party" so expect many such attempts now... but they are so incompetent now and have squandered so much public trust they probably can't pull it off. Trump was right when he said he could shoot somebody on 5th Avenue and his voters wouldn't care, we wouldn't care because we wouldn't trust the media reporting it.
This is not a good situation, btw, And no I don't have a solution.
(Score: 2) by cafebabe on Saturday May 06 2017, @11:19PM
The last journalist I (knowingly) met certainly had an agenda. Specifically, he wrote articles which were favorable to pro-immigration demonstrators and only varied his output to increase virtuousness. If pro-immigration demonstrators killed someone he'd probably ignore it or spin it favorably.
Oh, and there was the guy in a makerspace who was covertly recording on his Android phone and then mis-quoted people anyhow. Oh yeah, and then there was the little guy in the wheelchair who similarly mis-quoted people. That was a blatent case of affirmitive action. If you're going to mis-quote people then make sure that grammar and slang are credible. Overall, I presume that it is easier aggregate, plagurize and fabricate rather than obtain the truth.
1702845791×2
(Score: 3, Informative) by fyngyrz on Tuesday May 02 2017, @05:53PM
Weather reports, perhaps that's near the mark. Spectator sports? No.
While I'm all for participation – which I see as healthy and fun – my interest in spectator sports is about as near zero as possible. "Everyone" is hyperbolic. Unless I'm the only one. Somehow I doubt that.
(Score: 2) by wisnoskij on Wednesday May 03 2017, @11:35AM
Peanuts.
ESPN's costs come from paying the teams and funding all these 100 million dollar athlete salaries. ESPN needs filler, but that is about 1 cent of the cost of the channel.
(Score: 2) by its_gonna_be_yuge! on Tuesday May 02 2017, @03:19PM
About the only thing people watch live TV for is sports, and sports fans are willing to pay.
I guess the point here is that everyone else who doesn't watch this don't want to pay for it.
Death-match vim vs emacs is the best. Joystick that, ESPN.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday May 02 2017, @03:28PM (3 children)
Yeah, I really don't understand this hand-wringing by ESPN. It's really simple: all they need to do is jack up their prices. Even if they raise their prices five-fold, the sports fans will happily pay that to keep access to sports programming. They'll even take out a second mortgage on their house if they have to. There's no practical limit to how much ESPN can raise their prices; their followers are addicts, and addicts will stop at nothing to get their fix.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday May 02 2017, @04:33PM
Younger sports addicts sometimes Know Other Distribution Interfaces, which happen to be free.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday May 02 2017, @05:23PM
Personally, I enjoy baseball, but not on ESPN. They just really don't do it for me. Sometimes they seem like they've never seen the game before, much less understand it. They'll need to up their game (so to speak) if they want the sports fans to pay.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Wednesday May 03 2017, @12:33AM
What they need to do is start leaving politics and the heavy-handed and patronizing "identity politics and diversity for its own sake" bullshit the fuck out of their shows (as far as I know the print version of their magazine is still great, and always has been, even if you're not a sports fan they have cool articles about sports technology and medicine). If that means laying off more of their talking heads who aren't sportscasters, so be it.
The core sports audience has always included a heavy minority component, but the issue is that those minorities have relatively conservative mindsets and don't want to keep picking the scabs of identity politics. In America, sports unite much more than they divide, and if you don't believe me go into any sports bar and see for yourself (though sometimes I wish we did embrace European-style hooliganism). Think of a sports bar, for example, when the diverse crowd is getting along and having a good time, and then along comes a show about oppression and minority underrepresentation and whatnot, and the bar goes totally silent while everybody rolls their eyes and scratches the backs of their heads and the crickets stridulate.
It's the same thing you see happening to Marvel comics. Yeah, they've always been about diversity and inclusion, but played to their strengths and their core audience. Now their sales are dropping for the same reason ESPN's are -- forsaking their core audience in a heavy-handed political attempt to pander to the identity politics types, inserting divisive "check your privilege" and "using the right pronouns" bullshit into their strips, etc. That is not empowering, it is condescending and patronizing.
You could say that the nut of the issue is that, somewhere along the line, "diversity" became the exclusion and demonization of Whites, especially White males, and not only that but the insistence that White males should feel some kind of innate guilt. And that's supposed to bring people together?!
(Score: 2) by mth on Tuesday May 02 2017, @03:49PM (1 child)
Whether they can survive may depend on how long their broadcast rights contracts last. If they are forced to keep paying for a long time amounts that seemed reasonable a few years ago but are not longer sustainable, they could be in trouble.
In the late 90's, there were a few previously successful PC chains that went bankrupt, not because there were no more people buying PCs, but because they had a lot of inventory and when the market slowed down a bit, the inventory depreciated so quickly that they had to take huge losses on it. So it's possible for a company to go down by overcommitting.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 02 2017, @04:06PM
If there were serious sports competition that could step in and pay ESPN money for the broadcast rights, I could see the sports leagues letting ESPN whither and die, but it is in their interests to have a healthy ESPN, so my guess is that they'll let them renegotiate those contracts. This purging of people might even be ESPN's step to show that they are doing what they can to cut costs to justify contract renegotiation.
(Score: 2) by Leebert on Tuesday May 02 2017, @04:34PM (4 children)
The funny thing is that you usually don't *need* cable TV to watch local team games; they're generally broadcast free OTA.
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Tuesday May 02 2017, @05:14PM (1 child)
you usually don't *need* cable TV to watch local team games; they're generally broadcast free OTA.
Unless you're a fan of
A. a player who was traded to a non-local club,
B. the club of the non-local college that you attended or that your son or daughter attends,
C. a club from which you moved away following a shift in the job market, or
D. your local non-football club whose matches are shown on some regional cable sports network instead of OTA [slashdot.org].
(Score: 2) by Leebert on Tuesday May 02 2017, @06:29PM
A, B, C, and D are all not exceptions to my post, which specifically referred to "local team games".
In any event, you're right that there are use cases not covered by OTA broadcasts, but even if sports viewers who watch local teams aren't the majority (which I seriously doubt), they certainly make up a large enough segment of the viewing public to really hurt if they disappear from the customer list of the cable networks.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 02 2017, @05:42PM (1 child)
Not in my area. There is the standard "big three" network NFL games on Sunday, but almost all the baseball, basketball, and hockey games are carried on the regional sports network cable station. For instance, you get one baseball game a week OTA where I live, and I'm in the overlapping market of two MLB teams. ESPN moved essentially the entire college football postseason off ABC and over to cable.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 02 2017, @07:19PM
And I am thankful for this change. I remember when I was a kid in the 80's and baseball was on all the time. WUAB in Cleveland ran Indians games constantly despite the fact there were only 6 people in the stands. By the time the Series began in the fall, I was sick to death of baseball. Not everyone feels like every single game is a "can't miss" event when there will be yet another one tomorrow night. I feel no compulsion to memorize statistics, players, or anything else spectator sports related. In fact, I just don't give a shit.
Rising cable costs, driven by unavoidable sports bundles, caused me to jump ship years ago. Now I stand back and laugh as the sports Ponzi begins its inevitable crumble. As more and more people like me pull out of subsidizing the sports junkies' fixes, sports addicts are forced to bear their own full cost of the greed they fostered among players and owners alike. Eventually, the price themselves out of the market. That's where professional sports are headed. Demand is not completely inelastic even among the addicts.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 02 2017, @03:02PM (17 children)
If the public would fund stadiums, sports teams wouldn't have such huge expenses. If sports teams didn't have such huge expenses, rights to the games wouldn't cost so much.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 02 2017, @03:12PM (6 children)
The hell with that, I'm not a football/basketball/baseball/hockey fan and I'll be damned if I want my local taxes building some rich team owner a new stadium. Now, if someone was able to get tax money to build a local bike racing track (like Major Taylor velodrome in Indianapolis), that would be fine with me...
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 02 2017, @03:23PM
I'm pretty sure the OP was being facetious.
No pro-sports stadium has been built in the last couple of decades without massive taxpayer subsidies.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Tuesday May 02 2017, @03:25PM (4 children)
To hell with your silly little opinion. You're going to pay for rich team owners to have an expensive new stadium whether you like it or not. It's going to come from your taxes, and you'll probably need to pay a new tax just for the stadium. What are you going to do about it? Vote for someone different in your municipal elections? Sorry, but all your fellow citizens are going to vote for the guy who pushes a taxpayer-funded stadium.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 02 2017, @05:26PM
Except in San Diego. We don't do that shit here.
(Score: 2) by Oakenshield on Tuesday May 02 2017, @07:37PM
Years ago, we had a governor that wanted to reduce income taxes. He then proposed a soft drink tax which was to be used to build publicly funded sports stadiums and arena. He found no support in the statehouse or among the populace.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Tuesday May 02 2017, @09:06PM (1 child)
It may be an opinion, but I'd sooner fucking kill that rich bastard than make him richer. Period.
If my taxes go to fund a stadium, it will ONLY be because there were studies and simulations showing the economic benefits of doing so and which classes (poor,middle,upper,owning) that benefit the most.
It goes without saying too, that it the tax payers fund the damn thing, we get to USE the damn thing. Meaning, that cocksucking stadium owner who is an elite piece of shit, gets paid NOTHING on the days the public gets to use the stadium.
My taxes pay for it? You better fucking believe the local high schools get to use it for graduation and things like that. Otherwise? Kill the fucking owner that just got billions of our money in taxes for fucking nothing.
On that note, just how many schools could get made for one stadium? I'm betting that it is more than one, and that it really benefits more than one person too.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday May 02 2017, @10:13PM
Sorry, but your ideas are ridiculous. The public getting to use the stadium they paid for? Are you absolutely insane? High schools using it for graduation? That's crazy. If a high school wants to use it, they need to pay for it, just like anyone else, even though it was build with taxpayer funds. The stadium owner *deserves* to get rich off the backs of the taxpayer.
If you disagree, too bad, because most of your fellow citizens in your city think this is a great idea, and they happily vote for politicians who pass taxes to fund privately-run stadiums.
(Score: 2) by its_gonna_be_yuge! on Tuesday May 02 2017, @03:26PM
Sure, like I want my tax money to subsidize a bunch of rich old f*rts trying to make money on sports teams.
Reminds me of the antics of Jim Balsilie - watching his company Blackberry get decimated while jetting around trying to make a sports team and arena deal. No tax money should go to supporting twits like this.
(Score: 5, Informative) by bradley13 on Tuesday May 02 2017, @03:26PM (6 children)
Why should the public fund the stadiums? That's a business venture: whoever owns the stadium sells tickets, plus all the sundries like food and drink. If the local teams aren't a big enough draw to justify a huge stadium, then maybe a small one. If they can't even fill a small stadium, then they can rent the local school track.
Really, public stadiums are nothing but cronyism at work. Team owners, local architects and property owners - they all profit from the tax dollars spent. As often as not, they also get huge tax breaks, meaning that the taxpayers suck up huge losses. Then the team leaves, or goes bankrupt, and another team wants a newer, better stadium. Rinse and repeat.
It's so easy to spend other people's money...
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 3, Informative) by AthanasiusKircher on Tuesday May 02 2017, @03:59PM (4 children)
In general, I agree with you. Though, to be fair, stadiums generally do have some community benefits that come in revenues to local businesses who benefit from people who attend games, tourists who are attracted to "big name team" locations, merchandising, etc. There are benefits to the local economy, and the health of the local economy is a legitimate concern for politicians.
Unfortunately, it's hard to figure out exactly how big those public benefits are, but they're likely an order of magnitude smaller than the sports industry likes to pretend they are -- which means the public expenses are pretty much way out-of-line with the benefits. Nevertheless, there's SOME benefit. If only the public could convince city councilmen, etc. to actual compute a reasonable estimate for ROI. Aside from the cronyism you note, the other thing is that sports fans tend to be crazy and very vocal. I have no doubt a lot of government leaders feel that they need to give in to demands because of the vocal fanbase, rather than making more rational choices for their constituents as a whole.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 02 2017, @05:12PM (2 children)
For the purposes of this line of inquiry, let's assume that tax breaks do not constitute a subsidy (they do imo but I don't want to get bogged down in crap).
Any big business moving into a certain area will have some community benefits. I'm sure the new Chick-Fil-A down the road from me has some community benefits. The two year old Costco on the other side of town has some community benefits.
What makes stadiums a special class of business that they deserve any public subsidy?
Does the public also subsidize amusement parks like Six Flags or Cedar Point? (Honestly don't know and too lazy to look it up.)
Should the public subsidize big amusements parks like those if they do?
What is the difference between (Stadiums and big amusement parks if those are subsidized too) and (Chick-Fil-A and Costco)? Scale? Do the profits for the private ownership not scale as well?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 02 2017, @07:46PM
The difference is that some people are batshit crazy about sports. Subsidizing it with taxpayer money is one of those "ends justifying the means" things if it brings sports to the undeserving masses. The fact that it is a big handout to a business that produces nothing of value but entertainment is lost on them.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Wednesday May 03 2017, @03:38PM
What is the difference between (Stadiums and big amusement parks if those are subsidized too) and (Chick-Fil-A and Costco)?
For one thing, branding. Cities, states, and even countries are frequently trying to attract people (tourists, businesses, etc.) by what makes them unique. Having a Chick-Fil-A or Costco doesn't make your city unique. Having a sports team creates an identity, same as having some sort of monuments or historical sites or whatever (which frequently get tax breaks if not outright support for maintenance and upkeep).
And I do not doubt that even some chains are able to score some local tax advantages or other businesses from local governments if they come to town. I seem to remember a South Park episode all about everyone trying to prove the town was "good enough" to get a Whole Foods. There's certainly a segment of the American population that views having a Whole Foods in a city as some sort of accomplishment or status symbol that makes the city more desirable.
Anyhow, I'm NOT necessarily arguing in favor of governmental subsidies for any of these things (sports or other businesses). But there can be a logic for encouraging local businesses in branding your town or even helping areas within a town/city. For example, many cities in the past couple decades have attempted "revitalization" efforts for their downtown areas. In doing so, they often subsidize demolition and new construction and may even give breaks to businesses or whatever that want to move in there for a while. When successful, such things often benefit lots of people: businesses get revenue, crime goes down, people get more options and a pleasant place to walk around and shop/eat/whatever.
Stadiums are not a "special class of business," but sports franchises definitely play into city identities, just as many other potential business opportunities do.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by charon on Tuesday May 02 2017, @10:18PM
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Tuesday May 02 2017, @07:23PM
We live under inverse-socialism, where the blood, sweat, and money of the masses, trickles up to support the extravagant lifestyles of the few and lucky. It's government handouts for the 1% and bootstraps for the rest of us.
(Score: 2) by mth on Tuesday May 02 2017, @03:55PM
You're assuming the price for the broadcast rights was set based on the costs of the teams. I find it much more likely that the price was set based on what television networks were willing to pay for it. The reason top players earn millions is not that no-one is willing to do their job for less, but that top teams can afford to pay that much.
(Score: 2) by richtopia on Tuesday May 02 2017, @10:26PM
Wow, I assume your post was sarcastic but everyone here on SN took you seriously.
FYI everyone, in the USA stadiums are typically tax funded with little revenue to the municipality which paid for it. I assume the parent has seen the very relevant John Oliver segment on this topic exactly:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcwJt4bcnXs [youtube.com]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bradley13 on Tuesday May 02 2017, @03:20PM (2 children)
Seems to me that sports channels have various problems. In no particular order:
- Sports are overvalued. Television rights have been hugely expensive, but those prices are no longer realistic, and will have to come down. The organizations that have been getting such huge payoffs are going to fight this, of course.
- Many sports programs in the US (less so in Europe) don't actually show much in the way sports. Take the Olympics as the most extreme example: At a guess, about 1/4 of the coverage actually shows the competitions. We get to learn about the athlete's sister's boyfriend's ingrown toenail. We get to see huge numbers of commercials. We get to watch the commentators, as they blather on about nonsense. We see cute childhood pictures of the athletes. What we don't see, is any actual sports. In the end, it's a waste of time, so I go find a streaming option from some other country.
- Many sports commentators don't know anything about they sport they are commenting on. My favorite was watching a Judo competition. One player threw the other using a foot sweep and the commenter said: "look, he did something with his foot". WTF is he doing commenting on a Judo competition, when he doesn't know what the throws are called?
Finally: There are zillions of events happening around the world, in zillions of different sports. Television, even cable, only offers a few channels, and they select what you get to watch. Streaming is a far better solution: Let the consumer pick which of thousands of different streams they want to watch. A central directory service would be useful, but not essential.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by VLM on Tuesday May 02 2017, @03:31PM (1 child)
Many sports programs in the US (less so in Europe) don't actually show much in the way sports. Take the Olympics as the most extreme example: At a guess, about 1/4 of the coverage actually shows the competitions. We get to learn about the athlete's sister's boyfriend's ingrown toenail. We get to see huge numbers of commercials. We get to watch the commentators, as they blather on about nonsense. We see cute childhood pictures of the athletes. What we don't see, is any actual sports. In the end, it's a waste of time, so I go find a streaming option from some other country.
Classic example, possibly discussed here previously, my family and I enjoy watching "Ninja Warrior" imported from Japan with subtitles (or without). That show is enjoyable light entertainment. We absolutely cannot tolerate the Americanized version of the same show, its simply unwatchable. Apparently 311 million americans agree with my family, its a free show that holds negative value so we won't watch it. Which is kind of unbelievable. Imagine if a restaurant were issuing free hamburgers that were so disgusting that 311 million americans wouldn't eat them for free. Imagine a beer so disgusting that 311 million people wouldn't drink it for free. That's how crappy our mass media is.
Note that viewership of pro sports has been collapsing for many years. Its possible that if narrowcasting is abandoned as a strategy, enormously larger audiences might exist. Maybe 30 million people would watch a professionally produced baseball game, even if its also true that only 700K or so watch american produced baseball games. The broadcasters are not trying to appeal to the most average americans but for example FOX is trying very hard to "out-ESPN" ESPN itself and thats reached cultural escape velocity such that ratings are collapsing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 02 2017, @04:45PM
You mean you don't like those walk-over advertisments that sit on the TV screen for about 2 minutes waving at you ? That's quality content, friend.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday May 02 2017, @03:23PM (5 children)
It was that consumers had to pay for channels they never watched.
By consumer you mean post-boomer. Boomers were incredibly heavily into pro sports, didn't matter how much money or time it cost (and boomers have plenty of money). Younger generations are not as interested, so insert giant flushing sound as that industry goes away.
In the 70s, a lot of money was spent on the CB radio craze. Landfilled. Or think of all the money spent on 8-traks or fondue pots, all wasted and gone. We'll survive the passing of mass media pro-sports. We've survived worse, more important stuff, like manufacturing jobs, non-big box retail jobs, its no big deal. Its just pro sports, nobody really needs that stuff.
I kind of like the idea that in just a couple decades, baseball is going to be nothing more than something kids and singles group teams do in a summertime park for fun, not some kind of freakshow adult steroid use competition funded by beer commercials and announced and commented on by journalists too stupid to become weather report readers.
(Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Tuesday May 02 2017, @03:31PM
I am so glad my most passionate hobby is consuming information on the internet and harvesting memes for the future. It is almost completely free, highly stimulating, and space efficient (local storage).
(Score: 4, Funny) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday May 02 2017, @03:31PM (1 child)
On the flip side, curling is gonna be huge.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday May 02 2017, @04:39PM
Toe curling is already a multi-billion business.
(Score: 3, Informative) by AthanasiusKircher on Tuesday May 02 2017, @04:22PM
Boomers were incredibly heavily into pro sports, didn't matter how much money or time it cost (and boomers have plenty of money). Younger generations are not as interested, so insert giant flushing sound as that industry goes away.
Hmm... "not as interested" might be true, but there still seems to be substantial interest. Top search hit leads to this article [theatlantic.com] which is about 3 years old, but the demographic breakdown is interesting.
The age 55+ bracket basically corresponds to boomers in the graphs at the bottom. Given how much less TV younger people watch compared to older folks, they're still apparently tuning in in big numbers for a lot of sports. NBA's audience is only 25% boomers, NHL 29%, MLS 27%. Pro basketball and soccer in particular seem really popular among younger demographics.
Though you may be right about baseball's decline -- a full half of the viewing audience is over 55 (bested only in the Boomer viewing category by golf, which I think was a sport mostly only ever watched by older people).
Anyhow, I don't think professional sports in general are going anywhere soon. We may see more basketball and soccer with less baseball, but it looks like a lot of younger folks still are watching some pro sports. As the opening of the article notes, NFL games accounted for 34 of out 35 most-watched TV shows that year. And pro sports continued to dominate the top 100 TV shows [zap2it.com] of 2016. Yes, the viewing audiences for TV are much more fractured now than they used to be, but there's still clearly a LOT of interest in pro sports.
[BTW - just to be clear, I am ALL for unbundling ESPN. Let the sports fans pay its high prices if they want to.]
(Score: 2) by eravnrekaree on Tuesday May 02 2017, @07:19PM
CB could still be useful if they allowed more power output to allow it to be better used with handhelds. The practical uses for it still exist such as a kind of community forum for instance, to communicate with people in the area, which you cannot easily do with cell phones.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by epitaxial on Tuesday May 02 2017, @03:30PM (1 child)
The single most expensive channel that makes up any cable bill is ESPN. If people want ESPN so badly make it a premium option like HBO.
(Score: 1) by i286NiNJA on Wednesday May 03 2017, @03:06PM
Yeah except ESPN draws tons of low income subscribers.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday May 02 2017, @03:39PM (2 children)
Maybe instead of watching sports, people could play sports. It's a lot more exciting, because you're part of the action. The outcome matters to you, because you're the one putting the effort in. Wearing the team jersey means something, because you earned it. Having your friends and family cheering you on from the sidelines boosts you, because you don't want to let them down. You form real bonds with your teammates, because you share experiences.
And pretty much any kind of sport that you would do in that way would cost you less and win you more than a subscription to ESPN.
That's how I see it. I loved playing sports as a kid and all the way up through grad school. I would rather gouge my own eyes out than watch ESPN or sports on TV through any other provider; I cannot possibly think of a bigger waste of time, more filled with vapid idiocy, than watching and listening to talking heads blather stupid shit about shit that doesn't matter.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 4, Funny) by VLM on Tuesday May 02 2017, @03:52PM
I cannot possibly think of a bigger waste of time, more filled with vapid idiocy, than watching and listening to talking heads blather stupid shit about shit that doesn't matter.
Slashdot wasn't that bad, was it? Well, yeah, the slashvertisements for e-ink, or slashvertisements for anything else, sure, but ...
(Score: 2) by Kromagv0 on Tuesday May 02 2017, @05:02PM
Then add in people who don't like anything that isn't a major sport because it is weird to have hobbies out of the main stream. I had one friend question me taking up German Long-sword and HEMA [wikipedia.org] because it is such a niche sport. My response was that it doesn't really matter how small the sport is so long as there is a community that supports it. If shin-kicking [wikipedia.org] can be a sport, not my cup of tea, and have a following they why not others.
T-Shirts and bumper stickers [zazzle.com] to offend someone
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 02 2017, @03:53PM
I'm sure they bloated over the years with the large stable of reporters and analysts, and of course cutting these people's contracts will cut costs, but given that they've WAY overpaid for the NBA, NFL, etc., cutting these 100 people will have as much effect on the bottom line as Washington cutting discretionary spending to affect deficit spending or the debt. It is going after the low hanging fruit, and it gives the appearance that "action" is being taken (both things Congress likes to do), but you need to address the budgetary elephants to really make a difference. It can also run the risk of cheapening their product, if they let the wrong people go.
The potential upshot to this is to eventually loosen the grip ESPN has on sports so that, maybe, we'll see more sports show up OTA instead of just on cable.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 02 2017, @04:43PM (3 children)
Just wait until August. Their subscriptions will either turn around or at lest slow. The biggest sport, by far, in the USA is Gridiron Football and most people I know who do have ESPN have it just so they can watch Monday Night Football.
However, if you look at the actual subscription numbers for the various sports networks, the ones holding steady offer one of three things: championship level sports (e.g. NBCSN during the Stanley Cup Playoffs), Regional sports (e.g. NESN), or sport-specific channels (e.g. the NFL or MLB channels). Basically, it is stuff that appeals to a wider audience, stuff you can't get elsewhere, or die-hard fanatics. ESPN would be far better off buying up those rights and showing 24/7 coverage of different sports, either live from around the world (Aussie Football, cricket, etc.) or tape-delayed games. I'd rather watch that than over-inflated egos either discussing the past or prognosticating about the future; that is what color-commentators and 30-minute pre and post game shows are for.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 02 2017, @04:49PM (2 children)
Cricket - YES! Completely agree. And cut out all the discussions except about 30 min preamble before matches.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Pino P on Tuesday May 02 2017, @05:25PM
In fact, ESPN shares a parent company with Walt Disney Pictures, which could provide a mascot for ESPN's cricket coverage [wikia.com].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 02 2017, @06:51PM
Cricket - YES! Completely agree. And cut out all the discussions except about 30 min preamble before matches.
Absolutely! Complete and uninterrupted coverage of test matches [wikipedia.org].
You can eat, sleep and piss* when the players do, with historical test matches on air during intervals.
*Bathing optional, but recommended.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 02 2017, @05:18PM (3 children)
Until they switched from music videos to reality shows. Nice way to kill a network.
(Score: 1) by WillR on Tuesday May 02 2017, @06:01PM (1 child)
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday May 02 2017, @10:20PM
As I said above about MTV, apparently it's working out for them. You're obviously not the target audience, but apparently more people would rather watch "start with X contestants and eliminate one every round" competition shows instead of real cooking shows.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday May 02 2017, @10:18PM
Until they switched from music videos to reality shows. Nice way to kill a network.
How so? They're still around, aren't they? Looks like their strategy worked.
I don't get it either (I have zero interest in reality shows, and back in the 80s and early 90s some of the music programming was fun to watch), but apparently I'm not the target audience, and there's plenty of people who really do like MTV's programming or else they wouldn't continue to exist.
(Score: 2) by eravnrekaree on Tuesday May 02 2017, @06:37PM
Good riddance. Having gotten rid of cable myself, life is much better. More money to spend, rather than on things I will never watch. What a rip-off it is. I heard ESPN charges $8 per subscriber, well above average.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by SanityCheck on Tuesday May 02 2017, @09:04PM (1 child)
Yeah I'm sure getting on the SJW band-wagon, and devoting untold amount of airtime to Social-Justice BULLSHIT instead of covering the thing people actually came to watch, you know SPORTS, had nothing to do with their demise....
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Tuesday May 02 2017, @10:58PM
Yea, amazing how everybody is talking about every other possible reason why ESPN is is trouble while studiously ignoring the bit about telling over half the audience to kindly FOAD.
(Score: 2) by wisnoskij on Wednesday May 03 2017, @11:32AM
The Sports networks should go on strike until the players take a paycut.
Tell that players that no one will see their games until they take a paycut.
Fight fire with fire.