ESPN continues to lose subscribers at an alarming rate

businessinsider.com/espn-bleeding-subscribers-2016-5

>The number of homes with ESPN has dropped below 90 million for the first time in a decade as the Worldwide Leader in Sports continues to bleed subscribers at an alarming rate.

>ESPN has lost over 1.5 million subscribers since February alone. If that pace continues — and data from the last three years suggests it will — the number of homes with ESPN will likely fall to at least 87-88 million by the end of the year. That would mark a 12-13% drop in just the last five years, since the network peaked with 100.1 million subscribers in 2011.

How do you feel about the imminent death of ESPN?

I'll miss around the horn and PTI, everything else can get fucked though.

FS1 is hardly a competitor so a drop in subscribers won't kill ESPN. Likely, they will just cut out what is left that is good and keep the cancer like first take that gets the unemployed audience

they deserve it for not embracing soccer.

TV died when the internet became a common part of every household. The fact that it has taken this long for effects to be felt is the only surprise. Dinosaurs of the old days will feel the pain as they won't understand how to adapt. These networks all boast about their streaming services but they are still operated like a tv channel, with commercials every 5 minutes and a third party cable provider account needed.

as the money bleeds out they will implement the following:
>more still photos of NFL games on sportscenter because they can't afford exclusive rights
>sell Monday Night Football rights
>sell Champions League rights
>release all commentators with more than 10 years experience and high salaries
>more gender friendly content
>everyone gets a radio show

>liking around the horn

>drop in subscribers wont kill espn

I hope you know that is what bring in the majority of money into the company

>watching sportscenter
bro it hasnt been watchable in like a decade

They show MLS and all the major international tournaments

Like I said, they will just cut some stuff since they will be making less. Unfortunately the company is run by people who hate sports so the stuff that will get cut will be the most sports related.

They will still be the #1 sports channel by a large margin so they will be fine

>unironically watching around the sjw

And then they let all of their "sports personalities" shit on soccer whenever they get a chance. ESPN is run by idiots.

>yfw ESPN is singlehandedly offsetting the gains Disney is making from Star Wars/Avengers/Zootopia/etc.

Theyll just trim the other espn channels. Everyone forgets disney and abc are the big dogs, espn is a big fish in a small pond, but theyre tiny compared to their ownership

>he doesn't watch around the horn
Women are laughing at you

Read between the lines folks.

>sauce is a competitor

Anyone here actually old enough to pay a cable bill? Do you pick and choose which networks you want and only pay for access to those? No, you pay for a package that includes all kinds of networks. So what most likely happened is that most of those 1.5 lost viewers came from one or two cable providers that removed ESPN from their package. Now, that's still not a good sign for ESPN's business, but it's not the same as if 1.5 million people actively chose to switch to a competitor.

Does make you curious why providers are willing to part with the "worldwide leader in sports" though. You'd think there'd be a lot of pissed cable customers if providers were just axing it for no reason (although cable providers are notoriously unresponsive to consumer pressures, see: South Park, S17E2). Personally, I know I've watched a lot less ESPN since I got NFL Network last summer, but that's just me.

Is woody still alive?

I always hated Jay Mariotta and that bitch with the manly face. I don't like hockey but Cowlishaw was based.

>>sell Champions League rights

you realize that E!SPN doesn't have CL rights, Fox does.

E!SPN only showed Fox's sloppy seconds (usually the random Buyern or P$G match) during the group stages this past season. Fox usually replayed that match on FS+ the morning after.

Woody and shaw are still on but mariotti got fired a long time ago after some domestic abuse thing

simmons is correct in asserting that its a tech rather than media company

people will probably look back to the early 2000's and think how weird it was that we had sports channels set up like fake news stations with fake reporters and "debates" and everything. We'll look back on ESPN like we do Poker from the mid-2000's or MTV from the 90's, a relic of a lost time.

I honestly can't remember the last time I watched ESPN.

>all of the Cards games are on the local Fox Sports affiliate
>very rarely, if ever, watch MNF
>don't give a shit at all about the NBA
>don't really care about college football
>ATH/PTI jumped the shark for me a long time ago
>why anyone would watch SportsCenter (or any highlight show for that matter) in the age of online scores and video highlights is beyond me

Absolute cuckold.

ESPN is basically like print media. It was great back in the day when basically the only access people had to sports was ESPN, like how newspapers were the only way people had access to news. But now with the multitude of sports options (season sports packages, regional sports networks, dedicated sport networks, etc) people no longer need to go to ESPN to get their sports news. And ESPN basically has to focus on the biggest teams and athletes (Yankees, Red Sox, Patriots, LeBron, Lakers, Kobe, Warriors, Curry, etc) because they have to appeal to the most people to get viewers, and those teams have the biggest fanbases. But because of team blogs and websites, dedicated team networks like Comcast Sports Net, sport websites, etc, people no longer have to watch Sportscenter just to get a few minutes of highlights from their team's game. You can go onto NBA's youtube page, or MLB.com and see almost every big play from your team after the game is over in only a few minutes.

And with their terrible analysts like Bayless and Stephen A Smith who are basically paid to troll and be controversial, that is what gets viewers. No one would watch their show First Take if they said everything rationally. When Skip Bayless tweets extreme tweets he gets THOUSANDS of retweets with every comment calling him an asshole. When he tweets level-headed stuff, it gets like maybe 50 retweets. People want to see what stupid shit he says just to call him stupid.

And I can guarantee you that while everyone says "I wish Sportscenter just did highlights", if they just sat there reading the play by play with video of it, no one would watch, especially when they start showing the highlights of all the small market teams and sports.

Skip is moving to Fox

>they keep pushing their leftard bullshit
>they keep trying to force soccer on everybody
Gee, I wonder why.

ESPN definitely isn't trying to force soccer on anybody

haha this dae soccer is for libcucks

i dont know about soccer but they are pushing women's sports so fucking hard

They force soccer all the time. If anything it's driving people away.

ESPNs problem is that have embraced quantity over quality. There are so many cookie cutter shit tier show that have dilluted the channel.

They force it into the top ten all the time. I promise you that annoys regular Joe sports fan.

They never talk about soccer wtf are you saying?

Soccer is easily less than 5% of ESPNs total subject matter on their channels airtime. Less than 5% is overpowering 95%? Not a chance. People don't watch because their analysts and hosts suck.

It's the same thing they did with NASCAR. As soon as they got the rights they started jamming it down people's throats. Obvious as fuck.

A 10 second clip of soccer is killing them? Not the other 59 minutes of sportscenter?

>watching around the jackiewinslol

Recently they've been talking about it more because of the Euros and the Leicester City miracle but otherwise there is an occasional messi/Ronaldo highlight or nothing at all

Just saying its part of the problem. I've heard several people, friends and family, complain about it.

>network gets the right to air a sport
>want to promote the sport so that people watch their coverage, therefore higher ratings, therefore more advertising dollars
>this is literally a basic economic principle, to promote things that benefit you financially
>every single network does this

But because ESPN does it, it's horrible right?

Thats still way more than they used to have, the problem is the obvious pandering since there was none until they actually had the rights to any soccer games

>complaining about sports on a sports show
Nice """""family"""""

Rather have more Jonny Manziel talk instead?

Nothing worse than a soccer cuck in denial.

>all people do is complain about how ESPN is just a bunch of morons screaming opinions for attention or focusing on social media bullshit
>they get the rights to soccer and therefore decide to talk about it to promote their product
>literally getting shit on for talking about sports just because it's ESPN and it's a sport that isn't very popular

you guys are truly unbelievable

NFL Live is the worst of them all I think

It makes shows like Ellen or Keeping Up with the Kardashians look impressive.

>Today, Herm Edwards grills up with Bobby Flay! Plus, we'll have on Steelers runningback to talk about his favorite movies! Then, we'll all use the big board to rank the top 5 CBs in the league ,filled with over-the-top fake laughter

I was on your side famalam ;_;

I used to keep ESPN on all day but now its either MLB, NBA, or NFL network, depending on time of year. People pointing to FS1 are off the mark.

When college football starts back up it will be ESPN but college dominates one day a week during the fall while NFL owns 6, meme Tuesday games aside

>watching any live sports content besides games

why do you care what old faggots talk about to fill time? I love sports but I find all "analysis" to be incredibly boring

Here's how real men do it

>6-10am
Mike & Mike

>10-12am
First Take

>12-3pm
The Herd (FS1)

>3pm-4:30
Complete garbage (NFL Live, Sportsnation, etc.), leave TV

>4:30
Highly Questionable

>5:00
Around the Horn

>5:30
PTI

>6:00
Pregame for local baseball team

>7:00pm
Baseball

ESPN really needs to develop a spring/summer pro football league for TV with more throwback rules disregarding human safety kinda like how XFL sold itself as a purist league back in the day.

it would be hypocritical as fuck but it ran right it could make a lot of money

do you have a life

>that absolute cancer to start the day
You must be suicidal

oy vey better pander to the niggers more

ATH used to be a staple of Sup Forums banter

funny how things change

>talking shit about based NFL programming
Kys

Because it's fun

its too political now and the morning shows are just assholes that say shitty things to provoke people

and even though they're losing a shitload of million, they just spend like 500 million on some shitty league of legends tournament. they deserve to bankrupt and I hope they do.

I actually did this when I was a full on NEET for 2 years

It was depressing as shit, the same fucking 3-6 (at most) news items repeated over and over and over again

Though to be fair I'd fall asleep around 9am during Mike & Mike, wake up at 2-3pm, watch Mike Francessa on YES then head back on over to ESPN

MLB Network is pretty fuckin based though with their highlight packages. Starting to focus a bit too much on the "personalities" but its not at unbearable levels yet.

NFL is pretty shit aside from Americas Game stuff

The Euro is a fairly secluded example. Major soccer tournaments happen every 4 years and they pull in relatively big numbers compared to normal shows. Leicester City winning was blowing up on every major news outlet. Look at ESPNs Twitter feed. Leicester City tweets were getting 3x/4x the volume that their other ones at the time were. The point is, anybody who used either of these two examples is somebody actively looking to make it the problem. I'm indifferent to soccer, unless it's a Worl Cup or major game I don't pay attention. But I'm not letting ESPN off the hook by giving them an easy scapegoat. Their shit because they don't listen to their audience. Nobody wants to watch Jemelle Hill. Talk about something being shoved down your throat. Sports center hosts are corny as fuck now. I'm furious every time I turn on ESPN and 7-8 years ago I'd be more than happy to watch for 4-5 hours a day because it was entertaining.

i love mlb network

just wish they had something else in the morning besides quick pitch.

I fucking love Quick Pitch

>just wish they had something else in the morning besides quick pitch.

Kek, same here, except I live in the west coast so the only show on mlb network on late nights is quick pitch

Holy shit, kys.

Tuning in to Mike & Mike AND First Take?
>not even once.


On another note, what is killing off the TV subscription numbers isn't people dropping espn, it is the companies having a negotiating stalemate with espn's tv deal. Espn gets over 5 bucks for each household that has it. Their nearest competitor gets something in the neighborhood of about 25 cents per house. If someone has the current package that includes espn, you can already add over 5 bucks to your monthly bill just from them, even if you never watched it for a second. Cable companies are balking at this figure now with the advent of streaming and lessening ratings, and are pushing for an a la carte channel selection which is user-specific. Giant media corporations are fighting this change in cable packaging structures tooth and nail, which only drives the stake between the cable companies and the media companies further. Once cable goes a la carte, espn will be in a death spiral if they don't agree to taking a lesser per household share, as people will always look to cut costs and just stream online, especially since espn is the most expensive channel before you get into the premium networks like HBO.

Under "news fair use" policies, you could use NFL highlights for up to 24 hours since it's considered "news"

but eventually they will sell watchespn separately as a streaming service, I don't know what's stopping them now honestly

E3 in 2 weeks bro

Nah man, do this (inb4 >worst coast)

>7am-10
Lebatard and Stugotz

>10am-12pm
The Herd

>12-2pm
Whatever day baseball game or European soccer game is on

>2-3pm
ATH/PTI

>3-5pm
Seinfeld

>5-7pm
Take a break from TV

>7pm
baseball

I agree 100%. From a consumer standpoint, there will be backlash and a slow adoption rate at first, as is with any service which switches from free to a paid subscription. However, from a business and financial standpoint, there is absolutely no reason why they should not be charging a fee for their streaming service. I know you need to have ESPN on your cable package to log in with your provider's credentials as of now, but soon I see it being an entirely separate entity that we will need to pay for, possibly at a reduced rate if we already get the channels on tv. Like Simmons says, ESPN is a massive tech company, they just don't realize it yet. I say it is either that, or that they were just so big and really the only show in town for so long that they are trying to slowly shift course on what was once thought of as an immovable object.

OTL is the only God tier programming.
PTI and AtheH have become caricatures of themselves. Bayliss and Smith are complete and utter asshats.
Sportscenter is a fuckin bunch of wannabe comedians that are not funny. Eisen, Patrick, Olberman and Kilborn gone, and were the base of some comedic life.
And Chris fucking Berman is insufferable.
And last but not least, agregious media bias to fulfill agendas.

no I mean they will sell it separately to non-cable/satellite subscribers, like hbo now

Disney should have been renamed ESPN

thats what investors should have paid attention to

I wish a la carte cable existed.

going "urban" was probably a mistake

and full SJW

I fucking love seeing networks and businesses literally cucking themselves out of billions of dollars by trying to pander to a few SJWs and minorities. The funniest part is when they double down on it even after it seems to backfire.

close

>6-10
M&M on the duece

>10-1
Lebatard on ESPNU

>1-4
Russillo & Kanell ESPN news

>4-7
Sports Nation, HQ, happy hour, sportscenter

The day my provider goes a la carte, I'll be the first in line to change my subscription. So many bullshit channels that I never watch, have no interest in watching, or have redundant programming from a channel that I do occasionally catch a show on.

>basebore

Neck yourself.

This. How many other networks are losing subscribers? (Non-sports related.)

People are dropping cable altogether for HBOgo, netflix, hulu, the firestick, google's plug in, cable is so fucking expensive these days that people are responding to that south park episode by steaming shit online. Soon fiber optics will take over the internet business and cable business will be dead entirely. Why watch tv with commercials when you can stream with adblock? Lot of TV will continue to die and ESPN is not any different.

>Though to be fair I'd fall asleep around 9am during Mike & Mike, wake up at 2-3pm, watch Mike Francessa on YES then head back on over to ESPN

livin the dream

sunday night NFL Primetime was my favorite show ever

>duh duhduh duh duh duh-duh- duhhhhh
>nuh nuh nuh nuhhhh nuhh nuh

In the short run, yes. However when people realize that the bulk of your programming is shifting from what they tune in for (sports coverage) into advertising and creating interest in the couple sports that you broadcast, you might be in some trouble. Especially when you no longer have the monopoly you once had (NBA/NFL/NHL/MLB network, Big 10 network, fox, nbc, etc. all take away from ESPN, not to mention cord cutters).

Just because something makes you money today doesn't make it a smart move if it makes you lose more in the long run.

Ill give you a >you for good analysis

NFL Primetime was good when it was a part of Sunday's SportsCenter and it only had Berman and Tom Jackson running down the highlights with Berman doing his schtick for the ones he covered.

The cable industry would collapse

>watching around the Jew horn

Twitch poker is pretty based nowadays

the problem wih the top 10 is the #1 play panders. If the red sox catch a pop fly that seals the world series (despite the score being 7-2 or something), thatd take priority because veiwership. #2 is usually the superior athletic play

No, real men go work to provide for their families

I have ESPN but never watch it. Not really a fan of sports to be honest.

espn deportes is the GOAT

Then if you had the chance or opportunity to do so, would you stop subscribing to them in order to save on your bill or possibly use it to purchase additional content that does interest you?

That's what the cable companies are wanting to shift towards since they know they are hemorrhaging customers left and right due to streaming services. They want to be as lean and user specific as possible, almost like a cell phone plan rather than a utility bill.

Half the time the plays on the top 10 aren't even worthy of being there.

>Mike & Mike

I'll pass

>real men have families they provide for
No, real men have harems of sluts they fuck at whim because of their super rich connections and ties to family.

>Sports Nation

Lucky they have The Undefeated to pick up the slack in revenue

People are quickly finding that a la carte ends up not saving much money, myself included. My main issue with my cable is the shitty fucking hardware and interface you're forced into. I want to go Internet+Apps just for my own sanity.

>So what most likely happened is that most of those 1.5 lost viewers came from one or two cable providers that removed ESPN from their package.

Cable subscriptions are down, it makes sense that ESPN subscriptions would be down accordingly. Sports are probably one of the biggest things keeping people on cable subscriptions.