[douche]

I can't bring myself to watch espn any more. They've gutted so much of their actually insightful talent, while retaining the hot take artists and trolls. And I don't need to be constantly bombarded with left-wing propaganda and outrage with my sports scores.

In addition, their broadcasts are just not very good. Watching TNT and Espn during the NBA playoffs this year was like night and day.

[Kluny]

Yeah, it's another case of an old media company thinking that the internet is stealing the fanbase. No, it's because your product sucks. That's the only reason. There are still tons of sports diehards even among millennials who would get a cable subscription for nothing but ESPN if it wasn't such utter garbage.

[noxToken]

Same. The only draw of ESPN for me was analysis and tennis grand slam events. I don't watch a lot of sports, but I love competition and statistics. Sports can give me both of those without me ever having to tune in. Replays of strategic moves (even when boring to the naked eye) is a big draw for me. ESPN has basically dumped all of that.

> it's another case of an old media company thinking that the internet is stealing the fanbase

Interestingly enough, esports fills all of these gaps for me, but I wouldn't say that they stole me from ESPN. ESPN shot themselves in the foot ages ago. The pre-game and post-game discussions of e-sports are full of break downs and actual insight instead of hot-take talking heads. There have been incidents of analysts trolling and giving super shallow answers, but hosts have been cracking down on such behavior.

Yeah, it is just watching a handful of people play a video game, but the strategy can get ridiculously deep.

[kasey_junk]

Can you quantify that? Cause its not just ESPN that is losing subscriptions to cable cutters its the entire industry. There is basically no cable subscription channel that is adding subscribers. The best some can say is they aren't losing them as fast as others. They study this a lot. Its pretty clear from their data that millennials have a different media consumption pattern from their predecessors and that new consumption pattern is moving up the age bands as well. Anecdotely, I recently cut the cord, am not a millennial, and am a huge sports junky that had cable (actually satellite) just for sports. I did it because a) I consume less television generally these days and b) the value proposition wasn't there with all the other ways I can consume sports now.

ESPN is being hit the hardest because they had the largest piece of the pie that is shrinking. Also their sports broadcast deals are staggeringly expensive.

Finally, ESPN is not moving to a sucky product for funsies. They are doing it because contrary to our inclination people do watch the talking heads screaming at each other, in about the same amount as other programming, and its much cheaper to create.

[edit] another thing that might be driving ESPN more to the talking heads model is the way views are calculated. As part of the metrics there is some accounting for public places that are showing television so from a 'real' perspective the bar showing Around The Horn on mute to a few patrons in the afternoon is not very valuable to advertisers, but based on the metrics they use it is. Model error is real.

[Touche]

I think ESPN is being hit the hardest because their content costs the most. Look at this deal they signed. Can you imagine AMC or whatever other premium content channel having to spend 12 billion for a few shows a week?

[lotsofpulp]

Which of the following would you choose:

1) watching content whenever you want, however you want, without wasting your time with advertisements. Oh and you can also participate in a forum discussion including high quality replays, and can link to other replays, etc, etc

Or

2) being subject to ESPNs scheduling, spending your time watching advertisements, and having to deal with an additional middleman (the channel provider)

It's a no brainer that other than the actual game itself, ESPN has nothing to offer that subreddits and other forums can't. And you don't waste your life with commercials.

[Touche]

It's interesting to see sports networks evolve in the same direction as political networks. When your product is based on shared culture it seems to degenerate towards tribalism.

[silverbax88]

I get a kick out of people saying ESPN is 'left wing' biased.

Nah, they're just bad content. Their competitors are trying to paint them as liberal, but they're just bad at content that isn't a live game and can barely be considered journalism.

[DrSayre]

They have a left wing biased, but it gets blown way out of proportion. ESPN's biggest problem is exactly what this article is talking about. They have spent so much money on TV rights, that it causes price of getting cable to go up and more people are cutting the cord because of that (not because they are liberal)

[HelloMcFly]

I think writers often have a bit of a left-wing bias, but many of the talking heads lean more right-wing. Consider all of the withering criticism you would see on these sports shows for Colin Kaepernick or Chris Kluwe. It's probably a money thing, in many respects: writers aren't wealthy, the talking heads usually are.

[dagw]

As someone not in the US, how can sport be presented in a left/right wing biased way?

[Touche]

In the US the sports media often talks about topics that are only tangentially related to sports. Like whether or not a sports team should accept an offer to visit the white house (a tradition for teams that win their league). Or about players that refuse to stand for the national anthem.

[silverbax88]

I agree that their problem is completely rooted in the fact that they have overpaid for sports contracts, coupled with the fact that they have no option but to continue to overbid for future contracts.