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posted by
martyb
on Wednesday November 01 2017, @11:58AM
from the American-game-of-FOOTball-which-is-played-using-your-HANDs dept.
from the American-game-of-FOOTball-which-is-played-using-your-HANDs dept.
ESPN pays $2 billion a year to the NFL for Monday Night Football and one NFL wild card playoff game. I've written for the past couple of years that as ESPN's business collapses that ESPN's decision on whether or not to bid to keep Monday Night Football would be the first big test of how rapidly that business is deteriorating.
What's a deteriorating business look like? In the month of October ESPN lost over 15,000 subscribers a day in October per the latest Nielson estimates.
15,000 a day!
Losing 15,000 subscribers per day is a lot, but is that because of the NFL anthem protests or because cord-cutting has finally reached a tipping point?
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ESPN Can’t Afford Monday Night Football Any More
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I don't want people to love me. It makes for obligations.
-- Jean Anouilh
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 01 2017, @12:08PM (31 children)
Or is it because the people realized how stupid NFL really is? (because, really now, do you see any other cuntry playing this brain-wrecker? At least you got Japanese to play baseball, there's a remote chance for a "world" championship. But with NFL?)
Or...
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 01 2017, @01:00PM (19 children)
Nope. The problems with domestic violence, changing the rules to make the game much more offense oriented by increasingly penalizing the defense, suspending players based on the commissioner's whim, increasingly poor officiating (a "catch" still cannot be defined, articulated or applied consistently), increasing the prices of tickets and merchandise every year, and other factors are turning off NFL viewers.
The National Anthem protests are a byproduct of the NFL's partnership with the US military. Before 2009 the players stayed in the locker room until after the National Anthem was played. But in 2009 the NFL started getting tens of millions of dollars per year for "military salutes" before each game (basically recruiting ads wrapped in the American flag). Part of that marketing agreement was having the players be on the field for the National Anthem.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Oakenshield on Wednesday November 01 2017, @02:06PM (18 children)
I just read an analysis on the problems of the declining viewership in all professional sports. The case could be made that it is directly related to demographics. The average age of viewers is increasing dramatically. There is very little influx of younger viewers. Younger viewers don't watch TV like the old farts and when they do, it's often binge watching.
http://adamhartung.com/the-nfl-has-a-bigger-problem-than-kneeling-employees-demographics-and-trends/ [adamhartung.com]
For me personally, I lost interest in watching professional sports as a very young teen. I had the misfortune of meeting some players in person and realized what a great big bunch of douchbags they were. This trendy "kneeling protest" only confirms what I already figured out decades ago. They are highly paid entertainers and I do not want to be subjected to their personal politics when I am paying for entertainment. If I want politics, I'll turn on C-SPAN.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Grishnakh on Wednesday November 01 2017, @02:53PM (14 children)
I just read an analysis on the problems of the declining viewership in all professional sports. The case could be made that it is directly related to demographics.
Sure, but the question that's relevant to this discussion is: how is NFL viewership changing, relative to all the other sports? If it's going down at the same rate, then you can ignore the stuff the previous poster said about the NFL in particular, as all sports are suffering equally. But if NFL viewership is declining faster than other sports, then his point is valid.
realized what a great big bunch of douchbags they were. This trendy "kneeling protest" only confirms what I already figured out decades ago.
Douchebags aren't people who put their career in jeopardy because they want to make a political statement about their friends and relatives and neighbors being murdered by police. If you leave politics to the politicians, then you're not going to get very good results.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 01 2017, @03:06PM (11 children)
"Douchebags aren't people who put their career in jeopardy because they want to make a political statement about their friends and relatives and neighbors being murdered by police. If you leave politics to the politicians, then you're not going to get very good results."
Not necessarily. Grandstanding on an opinion - however correct - doesn't mean that the player in question isn't a gigantic asshole. And even if by some miracle you found one grandstander who isn't a gigantic asshole, that doesn't mean that they aren't surrounded by assholes in a shitty environment.
Mmm-mm! Prime TV ratings, there.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday November 01 2017, @03:28PM (10 children)
Not necessarily. Grandstanding on an opinion - however correct - doesn't mean that the player in question isn't a gigantic asshole.
That's true, someone could certainly be grandstanding and still an asshole. Plenty of Hollywood folks are guilty of this: they publicly take good stands on certain political issues, but privately they're assholes or even rapists. Perhaps these opinions aren't even their own, and they're just jumping on a popular bandwagon.
But when someone refers to "douchebags" in the NFL, I think of someone like Michael Vick, who isn't known for any political or social stands, but instead for dog-fighting.
Also, remember that the NFL players who have been kneeling are a minority of NFL players, just as I would assume that NFL players interested in or who've participated in dog-fighting are a minority (and probably a much, much smaller minority than the kneelers).
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 01 2017, @04:03PM (4 children)
The thing I find odd is how people take offence to kneeling.
Historically, the only time I have heard of someone taking offence to kneeling was when the British envoy to the Chinese knelt in the presence of the emperor. Why was that offensive? because they only knelt instead of kowtowing (full on face to the floor kneeling).
This is the first time I have heard of people thinking that kneeling is less respectful than standing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 01 2017, @04:53PM (2 children)
It is a cultural thing, just as you mention with the Chinese (japanese??) emperor. "Please stand for the pledge of allegiance" not kneel, not sit, not squat. Take off hats, hand over heart, it is a ritual to display patriotism and the details do matter.
I find the pledge distasteful and creepy. I find people taking offense to be idiots. But I do get why it upsets them, the very basis of modern military propaganda is telling them that society has massive problems. Talk about the most uncomfortable way (for brainwashed "patriots") to get the message across.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday November 01 2017, @10:01PM (1 child)
Its a ritual to display unity, note the lines like "one nation" "indivisible" and so on. The pledge is something Americans do, not random groups of fans or racial groups.
The 60000 people in the stands have been standing up as per the ritual and the pampered rich bastards on the field are arrogant enough to not conform with the viewers in the stands, which is interesting. "I'm a millionaire I don't have to perform the pledge routine like poor people" Oddly enough that arrogance isn't very appealing to the poor people.
The left has been pushing the narrative that the USA is nothing more than a Costco and there is no such thing as American and so forth. Merely a bunch of urban gangs fighting each other for dominance over each other. "We're not Americans we're blacks who hate whites" / "We're not Americans we're whites who hate blacks" that sort of thing. Divide and conqueror. Its quite a red pill to notice who has been running that divide and conqueror narrative for a long time ...
Ironically from the far right I kind of agree with the far left WRT increasing racial consciousness and awareness. And on the third hand there is the rhetoric technique of agree and amplify where one way to make them look dumb is to encourage them to start burning flags at the halftime show (you know its gonna happen sooner or later regardless of what the far right wants, LOL). Once its accepted to burn flags then its time for the other side to light up the crosses, just sayin
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 02 2017, @01:41AM
Utter bullshit. They are drawing attention to the disparity between the way law enforcement & the judicial system treats minority's and whites. They are speaking up for those who don't have a voice (aka the poor). You blaming this on the left is more bullshit. You just love that divide people anyway you can trolling.
Anyone who takes offense to those kneeling to draw attention to these issue who themselves does not stand each and every time the National Anthem is played is a hypocrite.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday November 01 2017, @10:09PM
You must be a lot of fun at church services. I'm not a Catholic, but for reasons, I've been to a lot of masses and thats a good example of how dance floors are the only place where "you be you" "do your own thing" is accepted. The priest stands and 500 people in the congregation stand for the third reading (the synoptic gospel one) and some goofball decides to whip out some interpretive dance classic 80s break dancing moves instead and the other 499 people in the congregation are going to look at the break dancer like an idiot, a lunatic, an attention whore, or just simply a disruptive jerk, you know, like those jackasses who are NFL players.
Actually an even better analogy would be the football team lines up and says "yeah this is a football game but fuck it I feel like playing baseball today" and the jackasses start playing baseball instead, possibly without even coordinating with the other team or the 60000 viewers. Because they're rich, entitled, brats, attention whores, whatever there really aren't many positive ways to spin it.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 01 2017, @04:35PM
He didn't make you watch. He didn't take your dog. Why do you care?
If somebody wants to damage their own personal property for fun, it doesn't involve you. You have no legitimate say in the situation.
(Score: 2) by Oakenshield on Wednesday November 01 2017, @06:40PM (3 children)
Absolutely. My humble opinion is that the profession of sports is inundated with douchbags, Michael Vick being a prime example. My early teen disillusioning experience so long ago was with baseball players, but although times have changed, the participants seem not to have. I think the vast majority of professional sports is saturated with self-important douchbags, like much of the entertainment industry in general. Personally I think the kneelers fit this description. If you put up a football player (seriously, a football player??) as a role model for anything except ability in athletics, you are perpetuating a delusion that they have anything of importance or value to teach humanity by virtue of their fame. They certainly value their own opinions much more highly than I do. Maybe when the NFL decides it's time to clean house of criminals, low lifes and the like (Aaron Hernandez, Ray Rice, Michael Vick, OJ, etc...) then they can start to offer the rest of the world their ideas on the proper ways to behave.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Wednesday November 01 2017, @09:45PM (2 children)
I disagree. Douchebags may be douchebags, but that doesn't mean they're 100% evil people and everything they believe is automatically wrong, or that they're incapable of doing something good once in a while. They may be really annoying to be around and bad interpersonal behavior, but they can have some good ideas.
If you don't think football players, who are very public figures, have a right to make a political stand, then who should? Politicians? Regular people don't have the visibility that celebrities do; that's exactly why celebrities sometimes take public political stands, to try to use their visibility to make a difference. Being a sports star doesn't make them more qualified than you or me to judge political issues, but they do have a level of visibility that we do not have. It's not wrong to use that advantage, though it is a risk for them.
As for cleaning house of criminals, you can say that about any industry. When is the tech industry going to clean its house of all the harassers and abusers that are rife in its ranks? Or what about the ranks of politicians? Why do we keep voting for politicians who turn out to be criminals? As long as we the people vote for criminals, I don't think we have a leg to stand on in complaining about criminals in any industry.
(Score: 2) by Oakenshield on Thursday November 02 2017, @12:14PM (1 child)
Did I say they didn't have a right? No. My argument is that they are devoid of any inherent authority to assert moral influence over anyone and those who would confer it based solely upon their fame are just plain stupid. I do say that protesting on their own time is perfectly reasonable, but protesting while on the job is wrong, particularly when the "protest" expression is highly offensive to a large chunk of their employers' customer base. If they want to make a statement, they can sit or kneel all they want at MLB or NBA games. Look at it this way. Suppose your largest customer was the Israeli military. Would you want your sales reps to wear Anti-Zionist political buttons when they greet their contacts?
We're not talking about cleaning house for all industry. We are talking about justifying moral authority from an industry that is known for its murderers, rapists, abusers, armed robbers, cheaters, drug abusers, and other criminals. For decades, professional sports has turned a blind eye to the moral standards of their employees because the only thing that mattered was winning. As a result, now the public isn't remotely surprised when a player beats his girlfriend on camera, or murders someone. Proof? They rehired Michael Vick when he was released from prison. The NFL players have no grounds for moral proselytism.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday November 02 2017, @03:06PM
My argument is that they are devoid of any inherent authority to assert moral influence over anyone
OK, then who do you think does have an "inherent authority" to assert moral influence? I can't think of anyone who does. How are football players less qualified to make moral stances than any other random person? I can't think of a single group of people that is somehow morally superior to all or most others. The advantage football players have is their fame, which most other people don't have. Computer engineers certainly don't have that, and aren't ever going to get the general American public to listen to them as a group.
Proof? They rehired Michael Vick when he was released from prison. The NFL players have no grounds for moral proselytism
And what industry isn't just as bad? The religious industry is infamous for shielding child molesters from prosecution, not to mention conning people out of their money. The political industry is full of criminals. The computer/internet industry (that's us) is infamous for "bro culture" and sexual assault and harassment. Face it: every group of people has its share of scumbags.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Wednesday November 01 2017, @05:46PM (1 child)
Except they aren't and knew they wouldn't be punished in any way. The inmates DO run the asylum and they know it, push comes to shove they can remove any owner. Their contracts are not tied to financial performance of the team or league. They are blowing up the NFL, but slowly enough that it only ruins the opportunity for those who will follow them.
But with the traumatic brain thing that was already baked in, so the Progs figure to convert the accumulated goodwill of the NFL into SJW points while it is still a going concern. They don't have to care about the future because there isn't one, other Progs already assured us that football is going to sink into a sea of lawsuits soon. I'm hoping more than a few college endowments get wiped clean before it is over.
The basic question being asked today: "..is that because of the NFL anthem protests or because cord-cutting.." is best answered with "yes" because live sportsball is the primary motivation for keeping the cord, once you quit sports in disgust you might as well pull the plug on the whole cable package, especially since it is the only way to deny ESPN your ~$10/mo fee. I'm betting sports free cable packages become a thing within a year.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday November 01 2017, @06:12PM
I'm betting sports free cable packages become a thing within a year.
Maybe, but my opinion is that it won't change things for the cablecos. As you said, sports are the only thing propping up cable TV now; it's the sports fans who still have subscriptions. Everyone else with a brain has already cut the cord and moved to streaming services or doesn't care enough about TV to bother. Sports-free cable packages aren't going to attract people who've now gotten used to on-demand streaming services; who wants to go back to the bad ol' days of "channels" and having to tune in at a certain time? How quaint.
As soon as the sports leagues offer their own streaming services, cable TV is dead.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 01 2017, @03:01PM (2 children)
> They are highly paid entertainers and I do not want to be subjected to their personal politics when I am paying for entertainment.
You might have a point... if they protested during the game. Or if you consider "standing for national anthem" entertainment, I suppose...
> If I want politics, I'll turn on C-SPAN.
LOL. Good luck with that :D
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 01 2017, @09:10PM (1 child)
It really doesn't matter what you say, reality still won't change. Americans feel disgusted, rather than entertained, by people who won't stand for their national anthem. Doesn't matter whether they're visually subjected to it or not, it's the people doing the kneeling which are now the object of disgust. Fans will thus watch less football, and if it continues, find something else to do altogether. Snarky remarks do nothing but make the speaker look pathetic to those who do care about this sort of thing.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Roger Murdock on Thursday November 02 2017, @12:39AM
I think this might be part of the issue. If people don't stand for the national anthem in my country I do what's known as "not giving a shit".
(Score: 3, Touché) by Thexalon on Wednesday November 01 2017, @02:35PM (10 children)
It's true that the rest of the world doesn't play this brain-wrecker. Instead, they play their own brain-wreckers, such as Australian football [afl.com.au], rugby [worldrugby.org], or Gaelic football [www.gaa.ie].
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday November 01 2017, @03:15PM (2 children)
To say nothing about one on one brain wreaking "sports" like Boxing, MMA, where the entire object of the "sport" is exactly, and only, and unabashedly to hurt another human being.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by crafoo on Wednesday November 01 2017, @06:31PM (1 child)
I don't think boxing or MMA fighting should be characterized as a sport, and I think many/most of the participants would agree. It's a fight, or a battle. Sanctioned by an organization and with ground rules. It's dangerous. The participants are going to get damaged. These things are OK. This is part of what it is to be human. Some, very select few would like to test themselves against others, one on one. You may not understand this but this is a very natural thing to do.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Wednesday November 01 2017, @10:14PM
Interesting point of view. Along that point of view, is car racing a sport, fight, battle... How about non-professional recreational bicycle riding?
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Wednesday November 01 2017, @03:23PM (5 children)
Rugby, has far fewer impacts. In Rugby, one can only tackle the person carrying the ball and the types of collisions that happen in NFL are not allowed.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Wednesday November 01 2017, @03:41PM (4 children)
There's still plenty of opportunity for injury in rugby. Some of the common areas of play where it happens include:
- The scrum, where groups of 6 players all locked together push directly at each other head-first. Until the invention of the scrum cap, ear damage was very common in a scrum.
- Rucks, where a player has been tackled and now there's a pile of guys trying to get the ball out to their teammates. The simple fact that play didn't stop after the tackle means the guys on the bottom of the pile are frequently stomped on with no option but to lie there and take it.
- Mauls, where a mass of teammates try to push the guy carrying the ball forward while a mass of defenders try to push him back (and this can and does turn into a ruck once somebody loses their balance).
Concussions are also quite common with rugby [telegraph.co.uk]. Also worth mentioning is that in rugby it's much more common for a player with injuries to remain in the game, because there isn't the constant substituting of players and play stoppages that you get in American football.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 4, Informative) by bob_super on Wednesday November 01 2017, @04:56PM
Before there were cameras dissecting every movement on the field, Rugby players were keeping each other reasonable by reminding any guy playing mean/dangerous that he would soon get a turn at the bottom of the pile. Anyone who didn't get the hint quickly was likely to limp for a few days.
The additions of the skull caps, and the professionalization which caused the average player to gain 50 to 100 pounds in the gym, are causing more injuries.
But at least, the play doesn't stop every 9 seconds for a beer commercial.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 01 2017, @05:05PM
No one will dispute that, but the stats are clear that rugby is safer than US football.
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Wednesday November 01 2017, @05:44PM
This is an argument that's been raging on this site for decades:
https://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=24079&cid=2605409 [slashdot.org]
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Thursday November 02 2017, @01:41AM
Broken bones, cuts, yes.
But the chance of traumatic brain injuries is much lower when playing Rugby.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Immerman on Wednesday November 01 2017, @03:34PM
From what I can tell, none of those games use helmets, and presumable discourage head impacts as a result. Thus much less brain trauma.
The problem with American football is that the players armor their heads against surface injuries, and routinely absorb quite large head impacts without obvious damage - but the human brain isn't designed to withstand those sorts of accelerations, and gets damaged every time it's subjected to them.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by opinionated_science on Wednesday November 01 2017, @12:19PM (1 child)
...HAH! (Nelson voice).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 01 2017, @07:07PM
Wow, c'mon now. It is "Haha!" Not a single "hah". I call this correction a case of science, no opinion needed.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 01 2017, @12:22PM (11 children)
Even if people are turning off the NFL due to the anthem protests (on every channel, not just ESPN) they do that with their remotes and not by cancelling ESPN. ESPN is part of a standard cable package or a sports package. It is not an "a la cartel" channel.
The cable industry should report how many subscribers they are losing per day and how many of those subscribers had ESPN. That would give us a true picture of the number of subscribers abandoning ESPN.
Disclaimer: I think ESPN is shit. They are less about real sports and more about opinions, non-sports competitions (poker, video games), fantasy sports, etc every day. They also have very little integrity and will report anything they feel gives them a "scoop" with little regard for its accuracy.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday November 01 2017, @12:42PM (3 children)
That may have been true several decades ago but nowadays cable channels get a significant portion of their income from advertising, so it very much matters if they're watched or not.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 01 2017, @12:51PM (1 child)
I'm not disputing the importance of viewership and advertising dollars. I was just pointing out that ESPN does no "lose subscribers" on their own. They can only lose subscribers by cable customers discontinuing an entire sports package or disconnecting their service. If I could disconnect only ESPN I would have done so years ago.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday November 01 2017, @01:06PM
Fair nuff.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 01 2017, @12:58PM
According to this article from two years ago, ESPN got 60% of its revenue from subscriber fees. They got $6.04 per subscriber and the next highest fee charged by a network was TNT at $1.48, with total subscriber fee revenues of $6.9 billion and $1.48 billion, respectively.
http://www.businessinsider.com/espn-revenue-subscriber-fees-2015-11 [businessinsider.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 01 2017, @03:01PM
Since Disney Co. (the owners of ESPN) all but require every cable package to carry ESPN if the cable companies want to carry any other Disney channel (and they have so damn many of them, they get to be this 800lb gorilla), then 15,000 ESPN subscribers lost per day says that almost 15,000 cable subscribers cut the cord per day
(Score: 2) by frojack on Wednesday November 01 2017, @03:33PM (1 child)
I assure you that it not universally true. More Cable companies are starting to allow a la cart selection, as are satellite providers.
And even if it is, I refer you to the cord cutting topic in this discussion. When you cut the cord you can still get ESPN, via a variety of means, for a variety of prices ranging from free to just under 8 bucks. In 2011 ESPN was paid less than $5 per subscriber per month. This year it is being paid $7.86. And even if you pay, you probably still get the ads.
ESPN is, true to it's name, Focused on Eastern teams, both in its selection of coverage and in the bias of its comentary, and this does no play well west of the Mississippi.
ESPN is facing competition from several large sports networks, such as Fox, Root, and a MLB Net, etc, and probably a few I'm unaware of.
Both these two issues can figure into dropping revenue.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 01 2017, @04:43PM
But not with ESPN. ESPN is not an a la carte option on any cable or satellite provider. Sure other channels are starting to become available a la carte, but not ESPN.
WTF? the "E" in ESPN is "Entertainment" not "Eastern".
(Score: 5, Informative) by fustakrakich on Wednesday November 01 2017, @04:14PM (2 children)
You think ESPN is shit, look at what happened to the History Channel, et al. The entire nature of TV production on every channel has has adopted this horrible screaming sensational format that's impossible to bear, all designed to raise your blood pressure. It's unwatchable. AXN is all there is now.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 01 2017, @04:45PM (1 child)
Amen. Many channels aren't even worthy of the "entertainment" label. This is at least partly due to the 500+ channels running 24/7 vying for viewers and advertising dollars.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 02 2017, @03:27PM
Every channel having to be a 'hit' channel, rather than setting their production values/syndication fee costs according to their viewership. If they did, then many more channels could cater to a niche of a few hundred thousand to million people, and they could all stay in business and profitable, while not being the sort of runaway successes everybody expects today.
For an example of this (that is quickly being corrupted by western influence), look at Japan, and the number of channels, networks, and smaller production studios producing content for their domestic market. Smaller than America and the amount of shows produced there are far higher than the amount produced in America, and certainly more than those watched outside of regional television.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday November 01 2017, @10:31PM
My gym has ESPN playing on the giant TV in the mens locker room. For a very long time I've been subjected to 5-10 minutes of ESPN at a time. My observations are 40% commercials for old men products, 40% old male sportscaters and occasionally guests yelling nonsense about nothing at each other, and maybe 10% highlight reel commentary the kind of stuff you'd watch a youtube clip for if you weren't watching TV. The other 10% is weird banter, flirting with the elderly yet still hot MILF (GILF?) female hosts who appear to know nothing about sports and their only hiring criteria was affirmative action/hotness.
The commercials are moderately interesting because some day I want to age into being a cranky old man. Assuming I'm not already. So I know all the pills I should be taking in 30 years from watching ESPN ads, all of which have minor side effects like death or my dick falling off. For 5 minutes a day its kind of novel, the commercials I mean, not having my dick fall off. This is not a special sauce, AFAIK you can see the same stupid commercials on CNBC for example.
The sportscasters yelling is simply obnoxious. Drama, but not even good drama. Second guessing and monday morning quarterbacking and shit talking about stuff that doesn't matter. They're definitely not in a hobby selected for high IQs and it shows in their sophistry or lack thereof. This is annoying. Unfortunately it seems ESPN mgmt thinks this is their ideal content?
The clips are sometimes interesting but lets be realistic the UI experience is better online perhaps on youtube. When your coolest feature can be better replaced by youtube clips, you know you're in big trouble.
The 10% banter is bizarre, especially the female commentary. Imagine if SN or /. ran like ESPN and in every story about functional programming or physics experiments we had 5% of the posts be women saying they donno nothing about any of the discussion topic but take a look at my great rack. The best analogy would be something like 4chans /DIY/ having 5% of the posts being leakage (kinda gross sounding...) from /hc/ or /s/ (or /b/ ?). Come on ESPN guys, its embarrassing its 2017 if guys merely want to see tits they go online not watch ESPN.
My analysis is based on airtime its 20% better replaced by online services, 40% obnoxious and annoying, 40% kinda neutral but not a special sauce.
(Score: 4, Funny) by realDonaldTrump on Wednesday November 01 2017, @12:51PM (18 children)
More and more Americans are DISGUSTED by the unpatriotic NFL players who #TakeAKnee and by ESPN's very disrespectful .@JemeleHill. Apologize! Football rights will get cheaper and cheaper. While ESPN gets poorer and poorer. Both failing big time! NFL merchandise sales also tanking massively. pic.twitter.com/bQ9Wo7Fnsa [t.co] #BoycottNFL #NFLBoycott #WorldSeries 🚫🏈🇺🇸
(Score: 5, Informative) by c0lo on Wednesday November 01 2017, @01:26PM
Oh, God!!
At least a footballer will take some good years of head bashing before they get to that much an idiot.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 01 2017, @01:42PM (12 children)
Why did the owners start playing the anthem at every game? Not everyone goes for rah-rah patriotism. And the players disagree with the propaganda. Free speech!
(Score: 3, Funny) by realDonaldTrump on Wednesday November 01 2017, @02:47PM (6 children)
My military, my Department of Defense, pays for it. Pays the NFL, the NBA, the NHL, MLB, NASCAR and Major League Soccer. Because it's great for recruiting. When they do it, it works great. And a lot of that money comes from our taxpayers. If you think about it, a lot of it comes from taxes in the end. They're taking the money and not doing the work. Which I hate. Which I hate. It's a disaster. But we have a law, it's called USC Section 301. A law they're breaking when they don't stand. Folks, I think maybe I should start enforcing that law. Send in my FBI to enforce that. Respect for Flag, Anthem and Country. #MAGA 🇺🇸
(Score: 4, Informative) by captain normal on Wednesday November 01 2017, @04:59PM (5 children)
It's actually 36 U.S. Code § 301 - National anthem. (https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/36/301)
And when you read it you may notice that the operative words are "should" and "may" not "must" or "required".
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts"- --Daniel Patrick Moynihan--
(Score: 3, Interesting) by isostatic on Wednesday November 01 2017, @05:38PM (3 children)
Oh my word, that's an actual law?
Hilarious. If I'm ever hunted down by the US military I'll ensure I have a speaker and a copy of the star spangled banner on my phone.
I'll play it on repeat, and get simply walk away :D
(Score: 2) by tibman on Wednesday November 01 2017, @10:11PM (2 children)
If the soldier is armed then a lot of that stuff goes out the window. Don't have to salute. Don't have to remove your hat/helmet. Just a warning to you before you do something stupid : P
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Thursday November 02 2017, @10:34PM (1 child)
Which law is that under?
(Score: 2) by tibman on Friday November 03 2017, @02:23AM
It won't be a law but a military regulation. The US Army for example: AR 670-1, section 3-7, l (lowercase L) 2
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(Score: 0, Troll) by realDonaldTrump on Wednesday November 01 2017, @06:13PM
That's it. Long & complicated way to say: respect Flag, Anthem and Country. Nobody knew that could be so complicated. #MAGA 🇺🇸
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday November 01 2017, @05:05PM
It raised attendance [espn.com].
So ... money, as usual.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 01 2017, @05:10PM (3 children)
Look, what kind of person watches football? It's not a low-T soy-boy sitting at Starbucks. It's not a hateful lady in a Burqa. It's not an illegal immigrant.
Perhaps excluding black people, football audiences overwhelmingly support: the police, the military, Trump, Boy Scouts, the wall, stuff made in the USA, a Muslim ban...
Know your audience. You aren't going to succeed if you piss off your audience. Feel free to piss off other people, but your paying customers are not to be offended.
A couple similar examples are killer whale shows and circus elephants. The people protesting those things weren't part of the audience. They didn't buy tickets, and they still won't buy tickets. The audience loved those things; take them away and your business dies. The big circuses did just that: ditched the elephants due to protesters, and then promptly went out of business. Sea World is next, having agreed to phase out the killer whale shows. Sea World's first mistake was actually to start using the scientific name "orca" instead of the English name "killer whale". Once the show is gone, Sea World will quickly go out of business.
Another great example is a company called "84 Lumbar". They aired a superbowl ad that essentially supported illegal immigration. (with people crossing a wall even) Business took a hit. See why? The paying customers are not a bunch of liberal apartment dwellers.
Another one is USAA. They sell insurance and other financial products mainly to military veterans. They dropped advertising from Hannity in support of a liberal cause. Immediately, a huge portion of their customer base lit up the phones at USAA to cancel all sorts of things. USAA got burned pretty badly. After some excuses, they eventually had to cave. Recovery will be difficult.
Starbucks has a different audience. They can't piss off liberals. That would doom their business. That said, pissing off conservatives will still hurt them. Business took a big hit when Starbucks announced plans to intentionally hire immigrants. That was a tremendous help for a small competitor called Black Rifle Coffee.
It should be obvious: don't piss off your customers or audience.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 01 2017, @06:38PM (2 children)
Yeah, don't piss off your employees either. The leagues have enough trouble with players unions. By not playing the anthem, they could have avoided these problems. Maybe it made sense in the aftermath of 9/11, but that was a long time ago.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 01 2017, @07:29PM
When your employees are disrespectful of your customers, you need new employees. Without customers, you have no business, especially when your business is a leisure item.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 02 2017, @12:39AM
The players aren't protesting the anthem. They're protesting police brutality during the anthem.
(Score: 4, Informative) by isostatic on Wednesday November 01 2017, @05:10PM (2 children)
You realise realDonaldTrump (6614) isn't really Donald Trump right - far too coherent and knowledgable.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 01 2017, @05:13PM
wait, which one?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 01 2017, @07:40PM
Fake news!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 01 2017, @06:55PM
How are those bone spurs doing? Did they move to your head?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by idiot_king on Wednesday November 01 2017, @01:03PM (13 children)
...is that even though "old-school" economorons will suggest they don't go hand-in-hand ("something something efficient use of resources" is their general argument), they absolutely do. Latent and not-so-latent biases and bigotry are what govern use of resources in many cases. Notice how hockey and golf don't seem to have these problems with viewership plummeting -- in large part because they are both primarily "white" sports, and they would be absolutely hosed the second either one had players protesting the unfettered everyday brutality against minorities and they know that (most of the players are white and rich though - so that would never happen).
Just goes to show that social sentiment and the economy are indeed tied - so it should be no surprised that a racist nation will punish a favorite pastime for "gettin' too uppity" for its taste.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday November 01 2017, @01:17PM (2 children)
I never understood how people could watch golf without chewing off their eyeballs to escape the tedium. Then there came a period when I was looking for work in the Bay Area and stayed with my aunt and golf-fanatic uncle in the guest room of their condo in Fremont. There was a desktop in there, so I went to use it to find job leads. The first thing that popped up in the browser was reams and reams of photos of naked women on golf greens, spreading their legs in front of the hole while foursomes of golfing men putted little white balls in. Suddenly I understood that golf is a metaphor for sex, and that the entire sport is a twisted sublimation of middle aged men's desires.
POW! There you have it. Your mind has been blown, no?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday November 01 2017, @02:16PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 01 2017, @06:00PM
Your mind has been blown, no?
No, something else entirely... don't leave me wanting, please, go on, tell me more
(Score: 5, Insightful) by schad on Wednesday November 01 2017, @01:41PM
What are you talking about? Hockey's US viewership can best be described as -- with apologies to SNL -- stable after being declared dead in 2005. It's very much a regional thing now, and nothing at all like the NFL, MLB, and NBA. Are the playoff games even nationally televised any more? In most of the country, Premier League soccer is a bigger deal than hockey.
As far as golf goes: Tiger Woods [espn.com]. Plenty of things you can say about golf and racism, but "non-white golfers make whites stop watching" is not one of them.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 01 2017, @02:53PM (6 children)
I think a major problem is that football has been increasingly being seen as a game played by thugs. Not because of their skin color, but because of their actions. Murder, rape, assault, even dog abuse and fighting. Even if those engaging in crime are a minority, they reflect very poorly on the rest. Football, for whatever reason, never really produced a Michael Jordan to help offset the bad apples. Now take this to the next level with these individuals deciding to disrespect the country that has given them collectively billions of dollars for skills that don't really have any value, and it's kind of salting the wound that is their own image.
The 'plight of the minorities' is mostly sensationalism. Their has been exponential progress since the 50s. Today if you're a minority you're vastly more likely than anybody else to, for instance, be accepted to med school - given comparable MCAT scores. If you're an individual of merit 'x' you're arguably going to be more successful as a minority than you would be as a majority in today's society. Even on the whole police violence thing, it's quite bizarre. For instance a police officer is 1,850% [washingtonpost.com] more likely to be killed by a black assailant than a unarmed black individual is to be killed by a police officer. And the probability of a private black individual murdering another black private individual dwarf all of those statistics. Police oppression makes for great headlines, but it's not really well supported by anything other than rare anecdotal instances which the media spins into a controversy.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by edIII on Wednesday November 01 2017, @05:30PM (5 children)
You're so full of shit, you could fertilize a continent. You can't spin these "anecdotal" instances. I used to think police oppression was just a claim.. till Rodney King. Then minorities told us that was their normal. I don't think they would've rioted it if justice had been provided, and only rioted *because* bad behavior by police was so widespread, so anecdotal, that they couldn't take the oppression AND lack of justice when there was a reasonable chance for them to finally have justice. That opened my eyes.
Fast forward 15 years and the ubiquitousness of cheap camera technology has changed anecdotal, to videographic evidence. Rare means it happens very little. When you can't go three fucking days without a VIDEO of a minority being oppressed, shot, and often killed, you went from anecdotal to widely believed to be true because there are fucking videos.
At this point I would believe a minority before I believe the cop. Cops need bodycam footage now because their integrity has fucking evaporated. It's ALSO worth pointing out that it doesn't just happen to minorities. Cops are KILLING WHITE PEOPLE [wikipedia.org] too. That's not anecdotal either with the video of the murder of a mentally ill homeless man by nearly a dozen cops was filmed, as well as them preventing emergency services from attending to the man before he died.
Rare anecdotal instances? You must be fucking oblivious. Cops are murdering, stealing from, and oppressing Americans of all races, colors, creeds, and religions. The evidence only keeps mounting that we let cops get away from us as a special class of citizen immune to the laws they ostensibly enforce, incentivized to steal from us (illegal and unconstitutional asset seizure), and protected by corrupt police unions.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 01 2017, @07:44PM (4 children)
Out of curiosity, do you even know the story behind King other than him getting beaten? The night before the event King spent it with friends getting drunk and high. They then decided to go speeding down the freeway which attracted police attention. King was worried about getting pulled over since he was still on parole from his latest crime where he had robbed a store owner, assaulting him in the process (with a bat). So he decided to go zooming down the freeway, while high and drunk, risking one can imagine how many lives. He then moved into residential zones driving at speeds up to 80 mph.
When he was finally stopped, officers demanded everybody get out of the car. King refused. When he finally did emerge he acted belligerently and can also be seen feigning to draw a weapon. The offers restrain themselves and move in for an unarmed arrest. At this point he resists and begins fighting and charges one of the police officers. The officers then physically engage him and it does get absolutely excessive as they continue to attack him even once he had been safely subdued. And there's no defending that, but at the same time I think people don't really have an understanding of that scenario. A TV station at the time made things even worse by cutting 10 seconds of the footage before airing it. Those 10 seconds were the ones in which King was charging at and assaulting officers. So all people saw was a group of men attacking a subdued individual. Terrible story all around.
The other side of the story is of course Reginald Denny. He was a truck driver with no past issues with the law minding his own business. What he didn't realize is that the path he chose to drive took him into the LA riots. As rioters crowded the streets he was forced to stop to avoid injuring any of them. In response to this they invaded his truck, dragged him out of his vehicle, and beat him to within an inch of his life. Even after years of therapy he was left crippled for life with speech and movement impediments. He tried to receive any compensation for the city but failed. Nonetheless he returned to a relatively productive life.
Rodney King by contrast sued the city and won 3.8 million. He would be charged with numerous more charges of driving drunk, domestic abuse, hit and run, he drove his vehicle into a house trying to evade police in another instance. He eventually married married one of the jurors from his trial, and finally died in 2012 (at the age of 47) having drowned in his swimming pool loaded with drug and alcohol.
---
It's easy to empathize with these awful videos and just imagine 'wow, that could be me.' And that is true, regardless of the color of your skin. But in order for it to be true you would have to act like a complete thug and idiot to boot. Had a white man acted the way Rodney King had, I have no doubt the scenario would have played out practically identically.
---
Finally, anecdotal does not mean something did not happen. These stories are absolutely true (though many may not know the context). And there are definitely semi regular stories of police abuse. You said one every few days. I think that's probably an exaggeration but let's go with it. That's about about 122 per year. There are 323 million people in the US, and about 100 million minorities. Put your incidents in terms of ratios and statistics. This is the reason that anecdotal evidence is useless. It tells you something is happening, but absolutely nothing about its frequency, rate, and ultimately its relevance.
You can find instances much worse than Rodney King. Charles Kinsey for instance is a disgusting travesty. And I wish these protests focused on genuine injustices like that instead of police going too far with genuinely awful people whose existence most certainly is not making this world a better place. It makes the cause seem so silly holding up people like King as a martyr. No, the police should not have done what they did. But in his case, he did absolutely everything he possibly could to provoke it leaving me with little empathy.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday November 01 2017, @08:32PM
In America we let the courts proscribe the punishment, not the arresting officers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 01 2017, @08:32PM
Ok, so tell me about Malice Green now...
(Score: 2) by edIII on Wednesday November 01 2017, @09:26PM (1 child)
My point wasn't about Rodney King, and the circumstances are irrelevant to my argument. I stipulate to the facts you provided, and as you noted, the media offered information only from one side at the very end. I do not hold him as a martyr. Rather that the public at large immediately empathized with Mr. King to such an extent, that their anecdotes of routine oppression needed more serious attention as they heavily rioted. People don't riot because they are just a little angry, but because they feel there is no other expression left except violence.
That's all I meant to say. Mr. King introduced video to the equation, which made the facts very unambiguous (as presented). After the strength of their riot (a protest gone wrong), I opened my mind to the possibility that instead of the average black person's story of abuse being untrue, to maybe it is true. In the years since, so many, many, many more videos have surfaced. Where there is smoke there is fire as the saying goes.
I agree, but somebody has to start the conversation. Rodney King really started the conversation for the first time because the other side saw evidence. After that it makes it easier for good people to come forward too.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 02 2017, @09:07AM
The question is whether the "conversation" is actually something that is being had with any actual understanding on what is being said.
Imagine the media leaned a different direction and they decided to start collecting instances of white individuals being assaulted, murdered, raped, etc by minority individuals. Here [bjs.gov] are the bureau of justice statistic's most recent figures. This happens extremely regularly and disproportionately. For instance even though blacks make up less than 13% of the population, they commit more than 50% of all murders. And then you can get to crimes that tug on the heart strings like rape. Rape is one of the most grievous crimes and there are thousands of black on white rapes and sexual assaults per year. By contrast, the converse of white on black rapes/sexual assault are statistically nonexistent.
Take these things out of context, as the media is currently doing with other types of crime, and you've have riled up mobs looking for vengeance forming. Ready to drag an innocent individual out of a truck and beat him to death simply because of the color of his skin. Or, in a very recent incident an a group gang raped a woman and urinated on her with one calling it punishment for her for "400 years of slavery". These are consequences of the completely reckless behavior of influencers, including the media. And they're completely predictable.
What I'm getting at here is that anecdotes of crime of any particular sort does not mean there is a problem beyond the act itself. What you want to do is to try to see where we're most likely to be able to effect change, and work from there. Instead what we seem to be doing is having a media that determines crimes most likely to provoke an emotional (and even better, physical) response and then blare it on a loudspeaker 24/7 while sitting on the roof, with a fiddle and bag of money in hand, watching the chaos they instigate burn civilization, or at least civility, to the ground.
And while it's certainly debatable, there seems to be some argument that said influencers are intentionally doing this. Why in the world is media holding up these sort of awful people as martyrs while ignoring people like the aforementioned Charles Kinsey? There's not a single objective mind in this country that wouldn't feel for Kinsey. Take the current version of the Black Lives Matter wiki page [wikipedia.org]. I can find no fewer than 17 instances of "Michael Brown." Charles Kinsey? Not a peep. He is a good productive member of society who did everything right, yet was nonetheless unreasonably victimized. Yet the media mostly ignored his case, while they continue to hold people like Michael Brown as their martyrs. That is inflaming, and I think intentionally, racial tensions.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 01 2017, @04:58PM
they are both primarily "white" sports
Yet nobody's rise and fall had a bigger effect on viewership than Tiger Woods... y'know... jus' sayin'...
(Score: 2) by crafoo on Wednesday November 01 2017, @06:38PM
What an awful lot of assertions with nothing to back them up. I think I'd take issue with every single one of them. That is, if you had an actual argument. If you want to make a real argument instead of describing a fairly twisted, fictional alternate reality, go ahead and try.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 01 2017, @01:07PM
NFL is a lousy entertainment product. College football is much better.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by pTamok on Wednesday November 01 2017, @02:20PM (7 children)
Maybe the younger potential audience is habituated to Internet economics, where 'free' stuff is supported by advertising; and if you actually pay for something, you expect it to be without advertising? If you look at smartphone apps, the model seems to be pretty much, free with extensive advertising; or paid for to get rid of the advertising, and possibly unlock extra features.
Hence, paying for a TV channel which also shows advertising is simply double-dipping by the service provider, and maybe that behaviour is being punished accordingly?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 01 2017, @02:56PM (4 children)
This to some degree is what pushed me away from UFC. I still love the sport, but the advertising is just simply obnoxious. Every other replay being 'brought to you by' some company, or random advertisements being plastered on the screens during matches. And of course their stickers and logos everywhere. I haven't watched a bout in a year or two now. Just lost its charm when it feels like commercials and advertising became a bigger focus than the competition itself.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bob_super on Wednesday November 01 2017, @05:20PM (3 children)
US TV is unbearable, especially football, and its pinnacle the Superbowl.
You have a 40-minute "sport" in which the ball is moving about 11 minutes, which turns into a 5-hour show. Even counting some legitimate replays, which do consume three to five times as many minutes as the action, it's still an absolutely insane attention-span-killer rush to commercials.
You forgot to mention the ads in the room/stadium/on performers. Ad-covered people/cars playing by ad-friendly rules so they can maximize ad breaks and ad-sponsored commentary ... and you're supposed to pay for the privilege to attend or watch?
I love all the idiots who fall for this shit: they indirectly pay my mortgage.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday November 01 2017, @10:37PM (2 children)
For a good time compare imported Japanese subtitled "Ninja Warrior" which is pretty enjoyable despite my Japanese being limited to one mostly forgotten semester, vs the american produced "Ninja Warrior" which is mostly human interest shitposting and commercials with occasional short interruptions of actual athletics, but certainly less than 5 minutes of actual action per hour.
It makes me wonder what American football with Japanese producers would look like. Remember American management couldn't build a car to save their lives in the 70s... maybe the 20s will do to American TV what imports did to American cars in the 70s. We can only hope.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday November 01 2017, @10:48PM
Considering how the answer to declining viewership has been to shrink the 42-minute-per-hour towards 38 minutes (i.e. going from 18 to 22 minutes of ads per hour, including automatically dropping frames in old reruns), I wouldn't bet on the US execs admitting that they have a real problem.
With the likes of PAI at the FCC, and the power of the **AA, The Great FireWall of Trump could become a China-like reality. Because who needs freedom when there's money to be made, and Children To Think Of?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 02 2017, @01:25AM
Well I used to think you were an old douche. Now I know you are just another 30-40 something douche. If you were old at least you'd have an excuse.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Wednesday November 01 2017, @03:48PM
That's how cable TV was in the '90s. I felt cheated when cable started showing commercials.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Wednesday November 01 2017, @05:14PM
Piracy! Piracy! Piracy!
Why has no one blamed piracy for the decline in numbers? You know, cable pirates.
Then they can call for further criminalization of all forms of sharing and copying. It's a favorite ploy of the MAFIAA.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by bziman on Wednesday November 01 2017, @02:39PM
If you don't live near where your team plays, it is often very difficult to get that game each week, without subscribing to both DirecTV and a ludicrously expensive NFL package that includes every team in the league. Do they think people only watch out of market games because of fantasy nonsense? Or gambling?
I want to watch one team. I want to stream all of that one team's games. And I want to pay for it. I'd pay perhaps $75 a season for that privilege (ad free, of course).
Sadly, the NFL is not a collection of independent teams, but rather a monopoly stuck in a 1980s model of distribution. So I miss all of the games that aren't nationally televised. And the more I miss, the less of a fan I become, and eventually, like baseball and basketball, I will lose interest, and that'll be one less thing I have to spend money on.
(Score: 2) by goodie on Wednesday November 01 2017, @02:50PM
Because who would possibly think that having this much money in a sport is something that is worth it? On top of that for a sport that is increasingly recognized as dangerous and debilitating for the players... Oh yeah, pickup trucks and light beer commercials, I forgot those were important. It's the same thing for hockey, soccer, golf etc. don't get me wrong, I have nothing against sports, I have something against having this much money invested into sports because that money would serve a much greater purpose in other areas of life in my opinion.
But hey, the market dictates the logic right?
(Score: 2, Informative) by bradley13 on Wednesday November 01 2017, @03:15PM (7 children)
"is that because of the NFL anthem protests or because cord-cutting has finally reached a tipping point"
Yes. As in: both.
First, more and more people stream this stuff online. Joe Sixpack sitting in front of the TV? As long as it's convenient, maybe, but not Joe's kids. And even Joe will stop, if he discovers that streaming is cheaper.
Then, who watches professional sports? I can tell you that my family in flyover country contains a lot of sports fanatics. Lots are ex-military, all of them voted for Trump. Disrepect the flag? I doubt any of them are watching NFL just now. Stupid, entitled players biting the hand that feeds them.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Whoever on Wednesday November 01 2017, @03:30PM (2 children)
Stupid, greedy owners taking money for forcing the players to make a gesture towards the flag. None of this would have happened if the owners hadn't changed the long-standing tradition that the players stayed in their locker rooms until after the national anthem.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 01 2017, @05:16PM (1 child)
Sorry, the players are paid actors. They are supposed to follow direction, put on the costume and perform. They can pontificate all they want between games, if the contract allows it. It's all pretty straightforward. As Trump would say, *They knew what they signed up for*
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday November 01 2017, @08:34PM
They can pontificate all they want between games, if the contract allows it.
They can do anything their contract doesn't disallow, including kneeling.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by bradley13 on Wednesday November 01 2017, @03:31PM (3 children)
I have the same view of professional athletes and professional actors: They are both paid entertainment. I not only have zero interest in their political opinions, I have negative interest: I actively do not want to know. They are paid to entertain, and if they make a splash outside their paid role, it actually reduces their effectiveness as entertainers. For example, instead of seeing an actor's character in a movie, you will be aware of the actor themselves.
Dance, monkey, dance!
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday November 01 2017, @04:09PM (2 children)
You can make this claim, however look at how it's worked for Hollywood actors: many of them spout political opinions, and does it hurt their careers? No, it doesn't. So maybe you don't like it, but apparently many other people do, or at least don't care, and pay to watch their movies anyway.
Just look at Tom Cruise: he's not political, but he spouts his nutty Scientology BS all the time, and has it killed his career? No, quite the contrary. Personally, I've avoided his recent sci-fi movies because of the factor you cite ("instead of seeing an actor's character in a movie, you will be aware of the actor themselves."), but the ticket sales for those movies speak for themselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 01 2017, @05:21PM (1 child)
An actor spouting a political opinion is trying to impress an audience that consists of casting directors. The decision-makers in Hollywood do not often give roles to people who fail to signal that they are liberal. Public signaling is expected.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday November 01 2017, @06:18PM
I have to disagree on this one, simply because if you look at all the actors in Hollywood, not all of them talk politics. There's tons of them where there's no record of them saying anything political publicly. And not all of them are liberals either; Clint Eastwood is pretty famous for being Republican (and talking to a chair at one convention).
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Grishnakh on Wednesday November 01 2017, @03:32PM (3 children)
So ESPN is paying NFL $2B/year for their dumb games, and ESPN's subscriber base is eroding fast.
What's going to happen if ESPN collapses, or just refuses to pay NFL $2B? Is the NFL going to take their business elsewhere? Or will the NFL lower their prices to ESPN?
Doesn't the NFL kinda depend on ESPN? They don't get *that* much money from ticket sales and the Department of Defense where they could just stop bothering with cable TV broadcasting.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 01 2017, @04:22PM (2 children)
The NFL is playing the part of the Wizzard of OZ right now (don't look behind this curtain...).
They are hoping that some benefactor with deeper pockets will come along and rescue them by giving them more money than ESPN currently gives them and so they can continue to go on as if nothing had happened.
What I'd very much like to see happen instead is ESPN drops NFL, and no one else picks it up. That would be the single best outcome. Let the NFL start loosing revenue, lots of revenue, and then maybe they will themselves disappear.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday November 01 2017, @06:19PM
Despite the stupidity, they are still king of the ratings, so someone will pick them up and they will continue.
After all, as a comment below implies, isn't it great to see those one-percenters get tackled and thrown around?
Maybe the rating would be even higher, at least in liberal circles, if the millionaires got bludgeoned by Joe Plumber and Jane ArtsDegree. Remove the rules that stop the ball, give some weapons and spiked armor to offset the professionals being on steroids, and/or put more players on the amateurs' team ... I'd watch! Need a catchy gory name, thought, like maybe Blood Bowl?
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday November 01 2017, @06:22PM
Maybe, maybe not. What I'm curious about is why the sports leagues like NFL, NBA, etc., haven't tried setting up their own streaming services just like HBO, CBS, etc. I'm guessing their existing distribution contracts prevent it, but that can change (esp. if ESPN drops them, or tries to renegotiate for a much lower fee).
By cutting out the middle-man and going to direct streaming, they could perhaps get the same profit.
Personally, I'd rather see American Football die out because it's a horrible and stupid sport that causes debilitating long-term brain injuries for its players, but I'm just speaking to the economic/business aspects here. And this same advice applies to the other sports leagues too, which aren't nearly as horrible as American Football. I'm sure there's a bunch of people who'd be happy to cut the cord and just sign up for NHL streaming or whatever.