ESPN has lost 10 million subscribers since 2013

[Jetdawgg]

Because the TV sports rights bubble has officially popped

http://www.foxsports.com/college-football/outkick-the-coverage/espn-loses-1-5-million-subscribers-as-cord-cutting-accelerates-052816

 

[Fibonacci]

ESPN stopped catering to sports enthusiasts a long time ago. They are a watered down TMZ employing the likes of Stephen Screaming Smith and other idiots. 

[Adoni Beast]

A lot of reasons for this:

- smart phones, tablets, etc make reading up on anything so much quicker and easier, than sitting at home waiting for your teams highlights buried in the middle of sportscenter.

- espn's "journalistic" business model was replaced by a tmz-millenial providing one. Problem is millenials don't buy sports cable packages because they're terrible at life and don't know what bills are.

- continuing with the last point, the anchors, pundits, and "experts" have become laughable talking heads. The steven a. smiths and skip baylesses know nothing about sports and speaking in loud argumentative vague generalities to give the appearance of passionate and truthful analysis. When in actuality they are the actions of toddlers not understanding a thingz

- sports overall are worse than they've ever been. I'm not saying they're all unwatacble but evert single major sport has had big rule or culture changes over the last decade that have ruined the essence of these sports, resulting in poorer quality.

 

[faba]

ESPN became an entertainment site awhile ago not a sports site

[chirorob]

28 minutes ago, faba said:

ESPN became an entertainment site awhile ago not a sports site

It's not as good.

If I want to watch something good about football, I'll watch the NFL network.  If I want to see something decent about baseball, I'll put on the MLB network.  There is far more options for sports TV now then there was 10 years ago.

[Cornfed]

36 minutes ago, Adoni Beast said:

A lot of reasons for this:

- smart phones, tablets, etc make reading up on anything so much quicker and easier, than sitting at home waiting for your teams highlights buried in the middle of sportscenter.

- espn's "journalistic" business model was replaced by a tmz-millenial providing one. Problem is millenials don't buy sports cable packages because they're terrible at life and don't know what bills are.

- continuing with the last point, the anchors, pundits, and "experts" have become laughable talking heads. The steven a. smiths and skip baylesses know nothing about sports and speaking in loud argumentative vague generalities to give the appearance of passionate and truthful analysis. When in actuality they are the actions of toddlers not understanding a thingz

- sports overall are worse than they've ever been. I'm not saying they're all unwatacble but evert single major sport has had big rule or culture changes over the last decade that have ruined the essence of these sports, resulting in poorer quality.

 

This, my friend, is what the millennials might call an "epic rant." Well done!  Note I agree with most of what you said, for what that's worth. But I'm mainly complimenting the rant as a whole

[Snell41]

ESPN has gone the way of MTV. Does MTV even exist anymore?

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[JoJoTownsell1]

I'm shocked their investment in things like the wnba haven't panned out.....

I stopped watching espn (outside of pti and sporting events)after olbermann and Patrick broke up on sportscenter. Stuart Scott was the beginning of the end for me.  It became all about shtick and not about intelligent analysis. 

[section314]

16 minutes ago, JoJoTownsell1 said:

I'm shocked their investment in things like the wnba haven't panned out.....

I stopped watching espn (outside of pti and sporting events)after olbermann and Patrick broke up on sportscenter. Stuart Scott was the beginning of the end for me.  It became all about shtick and not about intelligent analysis. 

Great line about the WNBA!

[Mainejet]

ESPN lost me years ago as a subscriber. Sure, I still tune in every now and again, but I really haven't found anything as useful and to the point as ESPNEWS, and of course they did away with that.

[Hitman Harris]

Because all they do is kiss New England ass no matter what it is. 

Everyone is sick of those mealy moth frauds and they are sick of the gossip at ESPNE. 

[JETSfaninNE]

1 hour ago, Adoni Beast said:

A lot of reasons for this:

- smart phones, tablets, etc make reading up on anything so much quicker and easier, than sitting at home waiting for your teams highlights buried in the middle of sportscenter.

- espn's "journalistic" business model was replaced by a tmz-millenial providing one. Problem is millenials don't buy sports cable packages because they're terrible at life and don't know what bills are.

- continuing with the last point, the anchors, pundits, and "experts" have become laughable talking heads. The steven a. smiths and skip baylesses know nothing about sports and speaking in loud argumentative vague generalities to give the appearance of passionate and truthful analysis. When in actuality they are the actions of toddlers not understanding a thingz

- sports overall are worse than they've ever been. I'm not saying they're all unwatacble but evert single major sport has had big rule or culture changes over the last decade that have ruined the essence of these sports, resulting in poorer quality.

 

I have no issue with anything else stated here but the bolded is such an ignorant point of view. (I'm sure it was said just to troll and catch the attention of someone like myself but here comes the rant!)  Putting a box under your TV and engaging in passive entertainment with price gouging monopolistic archaic models just isn't sustainable in todays always connected society.  Its not because cable cutters are terrible at life or don't want bills, they don't want all the fat associated with getting a cable package.  If you want ESPN, you need to buy a package of 40 other bullsh*t channels you will never watch.  Why ESPN hasn't moved to an online only package model is unbelievable at this point when customer who want to watch baseball will buy a MLB package online, people that want to watch NHL will buy an NHL package online, people that want NFL package (like myself) will buy an international package or DirectTV Sunday Ticket online package in order to stream games online.  No one really wants to watch a bunch of passive personalities reading scripted entertainment about sports anymore when you can come on a message board or twitter or reddit and interact and engage with like minded individuals about the topics and interests they want to, without the advertisement bombardment of TV.

I cut cable back in February and it was the best thing I ever did.  Incredibly hard to do and was long overdue and the first few weeks felt weird but then it became liberating, now I consume what I want when I want at the price I'm willing to pay.

TLDR: ESPN Sucks! but so does all cable!

[JETSfaninNE]

3 minutes ago, Hitman Harris said:

Because all they do is kiss New England ass no matter what it is. 

Everyone is sick of those mealy moth frauds and they are sick of the gossip at ESPNE. 

This is soooo funny because yes it may have been true at one time, but ask any NE fan since deflategate and most despise ESPN now.

[CrazyCarl40]

The best things ESPN does now are their actual investigative stuff like E60 and 30 for 30. Can't wait to watch the OJ one. Their talking heads all day are pretty annoying. 

[Bugg]

The explosion of the internet means NOBODY needs to watch some 3.5 hour pregame show for anything. And NOBODY gives a sheet about some middling conference NCAA football or basketball game on a Tuesday night. Even the stuff they have that you might think is special is kinda crap spare the NFL. "Sunday Night Baseball"-who cares to watch 3.5 hours of Big Papi stepping out again to adjust his armor? Or the NBA regular season-game after game on nobody on the court much caring either. So really they got some NFL games and some big college football and basketball and....so who the hell needs The Ocho and the other 7 channels and all the other crap they fill it with?

And that's before you even discuss customers cutting the cable cord. 

[Bugg]

12 minutes ago, JETSfaninNE said:

I have no issue with anything else stated here but the bolded is such an ignorant point of view. (I'm sure it was said just to troll and catch the attention of someone like myself but here comes the rant!)  Putting a box under your TV and engaging in passive entertainment with price gouging monopolistic archaic models just isn't sustainable in todays always connected society.  Its not because cable cutters are terrible at life or don't want bills, they don't want all the fat associated with getting a cable package.  If you want ESPN, you need to buy a package of 40 other bullsh*t channels you will never watch.  Why ESPN hasn't moved to an online only package model is unbelievable at this point when customer who want to watch baseball will buy a MLB package online, people that want to watch NHL will buy an NHL package online, people that want NFL package (like myself) will buy an international package or DirectTV Sunday Ticket online package in order to stream games online.  No one really wants to watch a bunch of passive personalities reading scripted entertainment about sports anymore when you can come on a message board or twitter or reddit and interact and engage with like minded individuals about the topics and interests they want to, without the advertisement bombardment of TV.

I cut cable back in February and it was the best thing I ever did.  Incredibly hard to do and was long overdue and the first few weeks felt weird but then it became liberating, now I consume what I want when I want at the price I'm willing to pay.

TLDR: ESPN Sucks! but so does all cable!

As somebody over 50 with kids in their teens and 20s, on this the younger kids are smarter to have no loyalty at all to old institutions. Nobody cares about ESPN or what it represents; they simply ask how can they get the games they want to watch the cheapest or, even better, not paying at all. 

[win4ever]

Not surprised one bit:

ESPN went in the way of MTV, trying to create reality television instead of staying true to its core.  All of it is centered around scandalizing the news, instead of reporting the news.  Therefore it repeats the same need over and over again, alas people get tired of it.  One major story is beaten to death so much that people are turned off.

There are too many non mainstream sites and blogs that provide much better information than these guys regurgitating some info a 10 year old could say.  They don't have the time to break down the game.  This is actually the biggest reason why I got season pass subscription so I could spend time and see what happened in the game for myself.

The biggest advantage a big organization has is the insider info.  These guys have access to breaking info, but that got ruined by Twitter.  If you set the right people on your Twitter feed, you'll have the information before it scrolls over the bottom of tv.

If you want highlights, can look it up online so no need to wait around when you can watch what you want, when you want.

Too many annoying personalities, Luke bayless, Stephen A Smith and others who try to make up stories.

 

[Shadetree]

I watch NFL Network all the time..I never turn on ESPN. 

If I want NHL, I watch NHL network.

if I want MLB, I watch MLB network.

Short Disney.

i heard Fatcessa talking about how sports were going to eventual be ala crate and ESPN will suffer. Made sense.

edit: I would never short Disney cuz, you know, Star Wars and sh*t, but if ESPN continues to lose cable deals and viewership declines, disney will suffer.

[Larz]

sports center was must watch every night way back when

I haven't watched it in years

[ljr]

47 minutes ago, JETSfaninNE said:

This is soooo funny because yes it may have been true at one time, but ask any NE fan since deflategate and most despise ESPN now.

Every other time I'm flipping through they are still kiss BB* or TB*'s b*tt

[Hitman Harris]

47 minutes ago, JETSfaninNE said:

This is soooo funny because yes it may have been true at one time, but ask any NE fan since deflategate and most despise ESPN now.

LOL yeah probably right. Just goes to show how dumb those people are. 

I haven't watched that crap in years, other than the random youtube highlights of fail. 

[Hitman Harris]

34 minutes ago, Shadetree said:

Short Disney.

i heard Fatcessa talking about how sports were going to eventual be ala crate and ESPN will suffer. Made sense.

edit: I would never short Disney cuz, you know, Star Wars and sh*t, but if ESPN continues to lose cable deals and viewership declines, disney will suffer.

Disney can GTFO too. 

I don't even remotely care about these cable corporations. All they do is spread propaganda and lies. 

[JETSfaninNE]

6 minutes ago, ljr said:

Every other time I'm flipping through they are still kiss BB* or TB*'s b*tt

Thats really funny, probably realized they lost a ton of subs out of new england after the mortenson fiasco during deflategate. DEFCON 4 back to kissing NE's ass, we so sorry NE!

[dbatesman]

Im a millennial, I have never paid for anything in my life except Tinder Plus and Go-Gurt

[Obrien2Toon]

Baseball season I watch mlb network

Football season I watch NFL network

No need for ESPN.  

Couldnt care less about the nba, not going to watch 2 hours of nba highlights to get my 10 minutes of baseball.

[T0mShane]

I'd like to attribute its collapse to its poor content, idiotic on-air talent, and its willingness to sh*t on journalistic ethics, but then I see Fox News getting monster ratings and my critique falls apart. 

 

I will say, though, that cable news channels like ESPN have hit the ******* skids, and I think it's due to the fact that every "reporter" is now 26 years old and got hired because they're telegenic and have a firm handle on hashtags. Gone are the days of actual journalists leaving their chairs to investigate a story by culling sources, interviewing the principals, objectively sorting through the tedium of fact-finding. Now it's been replaced by one halfwit RTing another halfwit, who got the morsel of the original story from an anonymous tip phoned in by a biased agent or attorney. It's pretty gross out there.

[Matt39]

7 minutes ago, T0mShane said:

I'd like to attribute its collapse to its poor content, idiotic on-air talent, and its willingness to sh*t on journalistic ethics, but then I see Fox News getting monster ratings and my critique falls apart. 

 

I will say, though, that cable news channels like ESPN have hit the ******* skids, and I think it's due to the fact that every "reporter" is now 26 years old and got hired because they're telegenic and have a firm handle on hashtags. Gone are the days of actual journalists leaving their chairs to investigate a story by culling sources, interviewing the principals, objectively sorting through the tedium of fact-finding. Now it's been replaced by one halfwit RTing another halfwit, who got the morsel of the original story from an anonymous tip phoned in by a biased agent or attorney. It's pretty gross out there.

Twitter and journalism... The tail wagging the dog if you will.

[dbatesman]

8 minutes ago, T0mShane said:

I'd like to attribute its collapse to its poor content, idiotic on-air talent, and its willingness to sh*t on journalistic ethics, but then I see Fox News getting monster ratings and my critique falls apart. 

 

I will say, though, that cable news channels like ESPN have hit the ******* skids, and I think it's due to the fact that every "reporter" is now 26 years old and got hired because they're telegenic and have a firm handle on hashtags. Gone are the days of actual journalists leaving their chairs to investigate a story by culling sources, interviewing the principals, objectively sorting through the tedium of fact-finding. Now it's been replaced by one halfwit RTing another halfwit, who got the morsel of the original story from an anonymous tip phoned in by a biased agent or attorney. It's pretty gross out there.

#millennials

[T0mShane]

6 minutes ago, Matt39 said:

Twitter and journalism... The tail wagging the dog if you will.

When print died, the whole industry was unprepared, and this is the result. Manish.

[T0mShane]

6 minutes ago, dbatesman said:

#millennials

To be fair, they inherited this problem. There was some excellent literature 30(?) years ago stating that the USA Today format was the end of news.

[77DRAFT]

I used to watch espn for game highlights, now I can get better highlights on line without all their

crap.  ESPN is just annoying and boring, sports has nothing to do with their agenda.  They need new

leadership like they had when they started out, they started great and just went downhill, clueless

organization.  They truely despise the Jets which is good.

[RutgersJetFan]

Old man yells at cloud.

[T0mShane]

1 minute ago, RutgersJetFan said:

Old man yells at cloud.

If the fickimg cloud fought in Nam, it'd understand how America works, man

[Miss Lonelyhearts]

What's a millennial?

[Jet Fan RI]

Never watch ESPN anymore. Too much anti-Jets bias. Heck, I no longer even visit their website. It's CBS sports for me.