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ESPN to Go Way of MTV?

posted 8 months ago by TMC-4 (19418)
1 reply | jump to latest

https://www.reddit.com/r/television/comments/169r6vh/espn_to_go_way_of_mtv/

Perhaps for different reasons, I'm beginning to sense that ESPN's heyday is coming to an end. I'm not sure that the situation bears much similarity to what happened to MTV. In fact, I don't fully understand why MTV died as it did. All I know is that ESPN has been using a business model that no longer seems to work.

I just read an article explaining how much money ESPN will be paying out over the next several years for the rights to air sports. This includes NBA, NFL, MLB and NHL games. The biggest chunk goes to pay for the rights to Monday Night Football. However, we're talking about one game a week and maybe two now and then. Monday Night Football is a tradition in this country, but we live in an era when people are dropping their cable services in favor of other options. That can't be good for ESPN viewership. Plus, we live in an era when there are lots of other options. When I was a kid in the 1980s, Monday Night Football was the only game in town, so to speak. It's not that way now, and viewership has to be done there, too. All of that means less ad revenue.

I've heard that Disney likely will sell off its TV division. The ESPN-NFL contract is through 2033, so it's going to be a tough row to hoe for ESPN. Also, why is ESPN bothering to broadcast MLB and NBA games? Almost every fan can get local games on cable, which is also how most people access ESPN. While there are fans who will watch any two teams play, most fans are more interested in their local teams. Plus, there are now streaming options that allow fans to watch any number of games. ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball isn't as attractive when I can watch games all day long prior to the Sunday night broadcast. ESPN does have college sports, and college basketball is a big one that I'd miss. But CBS has a stranglehold on the NCAA Tournament stuff.

All of this is to say that I'm realizing now, as I go without ESPN due to Disney's fight with Spectrum, that ESPN isn't really such an important piece of the sports programming puzzle these days. I valued it as a kid mostly for SportsCenter, but I don't watch it these days. There are a dozen other ways to see highlights and news, and I get most of that from ESPN's own website. Actually, I'm an MLB.TV subscriber, and that's my favorite sport. The MLB app provides streams that show the highlights from all of the day's games. NFL Network shows highlights from the football games. NBA has a channel, too. Clearly, ESPN has lost a lot of its hold on the sports news and highlights stuff. I wonder if Spectrum is asking itself if it wants to pay just to have access to Monday Night Football and a handful of key college football and basketball games. Ultimately, I think the two sides will work out a deal, but it won't be profitable at all for ESPN, and I suspect that Disney won't own it much longer.

[–] stevewyzard (1251) 8 months ago

It's funny to compare Endless Self-Promotion Network with MTV because both channels for far too long saw themselves as irreplaceable, unstoppable forces. For all of ESPN's smug self-congratulation, no one entity has done more damage to sports by turning them into "showbiz" and/or "cool kids tables".

All of the MLB rule changes this year? They didn't want the games running too long and interfering with their previously scheduled programming. Home Run Derby and X-Games? Created solely to fill programming vacancies. It's all naturally justified with "the fans wanted this" whereupon they nudge their announcers to remind the viewers that this is indeed what they wanted.

Worst of all, all the distinctions between sports have been slowly ironed out, making every sport into a clone of the others. Canadian supremacy and fighting in the NHL? Mostly vanished. The insistence on inter-league play in the MLB? Lay it at the feet of ESPN, who demanded it because "every other sport does it!" Notice also how the NFL concussions issue that was endlessly discussed 6-7 years ago is almost never mentioned anymore, because why saddle such a money-maker with doom and gloom?