is sports dying and becoming irrelevant
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/espn-lost-more-2-billion-194708592.html
>>64070066
No, people are still watching its just that in the internet age there are more ways to watch the game.
>ESPN will die in your lifetime
ESPN gave up on properly covering sports. Now they are dying and irrelevant.
>>64070066
thats television dying, not sports
>>64070066
Sports are fine, the antiquated broadcasting rights and methods are.
>>64070158
Will you be smiling when bleacher report is the official broadcaster of the super bowl in 5 years?
>>64070254
why would BR do it when its been on Fox or NBC
>>64070206
Has nothing to do with why ESPN is losing people.
It's all cord cutting. People are sick of paying for channels they never watch, plus you can get shit online now.
>>64070066
ESPN hijacked so many fucking young sports, and condemned so many more to a slow death, that I feel nothing but joy when they bitch about less people paying to listen to politically correct sports bullshit. Fucking ESPN took xgames and fucking ran it into the ground. They never challenge NFL rulings. All they do is act as some sort of limp-wristed re-transmission faggot.
>>64070066
>ESPN loses 2 more billion
>all the SJW outlets are dying
>>64070066
NO. People are just watching sports online
> poor people who can't afford cable are driving my prices up
thanks a lot, fucknuts
>>64073053
is he stroking the flag? what does it ejaculates?
>>64073105
Freedom
>>64070066
That's like saying video games are dying because Gamestop is losing money
>>64073105
Muslim tears
>>64073113
Arbeit macht frei
ESPN's business model has always been a scam.
When you buy a cable package, you obviously buy a bundle. Each channel gets some cut of your fee. Bundling works because most channels can charge a very, very negligible fee per subscriber ($0.50-$0.10) if they're allowed access to 100 million or so subscribers. But if they get only 50 million, they'd have to charge double that fee. And 25 million? Double again. 12.5 million? Again. And so on.
Therefore, when you buy a bundle, you are subsidizing the channels in that bundle that you don't want to watch to keep their prices down. Your money goes to them But, again, these channels are charging you a few pennies a month and, in return, the viewers of those channels then subsidize your favorite channel in the same way. If you like the average cable channel, it's highly unlikely that it could stay afloat on an independent business model, so everybody really wins through bundling, right?
ESPN charges a fee of $8. The highest non-sports channel is TNT, which charges $1.50. That doesn't include ESPN2 or the regional sports networks that tend to carry your local team's games, which also usually range from $1.50-$3. If you pay $40/month for cable, 25% or more of your bill is going to sports. It's great if you like sports, but if you don't, you're paying a lot of money every month to subsidize the cable subscriptions of those that do. You're also funding the major sports leagues, which eventually get that money in rights fees to their games, bid up by the excessive amount of money ESPN has from the subsidy.
Cord cutting is taking that subsidy from uninterested folks away. If the number of cable subscriptions drops by 10%, ESPN needs to raise their subscriber fee by 10%. That drives cable prices up, and more people away, necessitating a further raise. It's estimated that there are only about ~25 million subscribers that would be interested in paying for ESPN as a standalone service. It would have to cost $30+ a month
>>64073064
>wasting money on cable
good goy
>>64070254
Will you still be smiling when Disney buys Bleacher Report and streams MNF behind a paywall?
>>64073514
You have the best answer by far, but there is yet more to it. ESPN's high fees are a bit of an issue of the tail wagging the dog.
Everybody remembers basic microeconomics es? Quantity is a function of price? Well look at it like this.
Most channels cut deals with cable companies for what is called minimum market penetration; it's an issue of "Hey cable company, you make sure we are included in 90% of all the cable packages you have available, and in return we get $x.xx. For most channels, that $x dollar figure is low, but when ESPN renegotiated a few years ago, they Insisted upon $6-$8, depending on the cable company. This necessitated them to accept a lower minimum market penetration level; only 80%.
Think about that, they were so stupid and economically illiterate, they actually demanded a price from the market intermediary (the cable company) they reduced the amount of customers they had below the other sports networks (like nbc/cbs/fox, etc.) in return for a few extra hundred million in subscriber fees from a smaller subscriber base. But where do most of a network's dollars come from?
ADVERTISING REVENUE
And what causes advertising revenue to go down (that is to say, the people paying money for commercial time on your network aren't willing to pay as much)? Ohh I don't know, what about a Fucking Subscriber Base that just shrank by millions of households because these are the disinterested customers that were able to rid themselves of ESPN by going with a lower than minimum market penetration cable package.
They literally traded a few hundred million in subscriber fees for a loss of billions in advertising because of shrinkage in viewers and thus a decrease in effectiveness of advertisement potential.
Some dufus just got too attached to the idea of a nice round high ball price for the service; probably deluded themselves into thinking "Hurr Durr, ESPN A preeemieeumm channel Hurr durrr, we can charge whatever we want hurr durr, King ofDa Sports!"
>>64073514
Obviously, that 25 million or however many people interested in standalone ESPN aren't all going to be interested still when they find out it costs as much as their regular cable package already does, so it'll drop further and the price will go up further in a negative feedback loop until there's an equilibrium.
Clearly, ESPN needs to cut costs. But maybe $1 of that $8 is locked up in things that can be cut that aren't rights fees. And they can't cut the rights fees, lest they get sued for breach of contract, so they just have to wait for them to expire. But they're locked into many of them for a decade, so if the pace of the cord-cutting process accelerates fast enough via it's negative feedback loops, they'll be underwater very, very quick. Which will be a problem for Disney since ESPN is something like half of their revenue.
If they make it to the next round of rights fees negotiations, it will be the leagues themselves that will be screwed, as all of their CBAs and salary caps and salaries and everything are dependent on the idea that league revenue will always be on the upswing, whereas rights fees in a market suddenly devoid of the cable bundling subsidy will have to go down dramatically if they want to be cheap enough to actually be accessible to people who want to watch.
The NFL will be okay, since it's games air on network TV, and the NHL will be okay, since nobody watches hockey on television, and the MLB will be okay, because it's mostly gate-driven, but the NBA will take a beating, and College Football will be a fucking disaster zone since schools are starting to hurt for revenue already and many academic departments are teetering on the brink. Conference-specific networks will disappear, and TV money for lesser programs will dry up.
>>64073765
>College Football will be a fucking disaster zone
what about College Basketball
>>64073765
You realize Disney owns Star Wars, now, right ?
They get cut from everything from a Lego set, to a tshirt, to a magazine cover, to a keychain, to a McDonalds cup.....
Disney bought it for $2 Billion, as I recall.
Disney ain't got no money problems, especially after Frozen and all the kids' stuff that came out with that...
>>64073850
That's a bit of a tricky one. Just on it's own, I would think that it'd be okay. It's low cost, gate-driven, and the Final Four airs a lot on network TV.
The problem is that it's basically half of the proposition of a conference's network and TV deal, both of which will get hammered, and I don't think they really include those losses just under 'football' but rather as the athletic department as a whole.
Key thing is that it's low-cost though. There will be D-1 FBS programs that give up and move to FCS when all of the TV revenue goes away because investing in a successful FBS program is extremely expensive. D-1 basketball doesn't cost shit and still puts asses in seats.
>>64073981
The city featured is not a b-ball stadium.
I read somewhere this stadium has more people in one place than 80% of the cities in NE.
>could be wrong
>>64073961
The Star Wars movie cost $400 million to make. Let's say it makes $2 billion in profits, biggest movie of all time.
That's about what ESPN makes in two months.
>>64074046
The problem with football stadiums is that they have such high capacities that, if your team sucks, you can't fill the seats without drastically discounting ticket prices and eating into your gate revenue.
Michigan last year was basically giving tickets away for free before games, but they got 'lucky' in that most of their diehard fans paid hundreds of dollars for tickets in the pre-season when people thought they might be good.
That's why teams are going to drop to FCS. Getting high gate revenue in college football requires costly investments that don't make sense without a shitload of TV money on the table as well. And if you make those investment and they don't pay off then you're really fucked from a financial standpoint.
>>64070254
>giving a shit about a dying sport
>>64073739
Mnf is literally always shit
>>64073961
>Microsoft bought MINECRAFT for 2.5billion
>Disney buys STAR WARS for 2billion
what the fuck
ESPN has done to highlights what MTV did to music videos.
Tom Brady said that back in 2008. And its every bit as true today. In no small part does it represent the reason for this.
>>64074532
candy crush sold for far more m8. microtransactions are king
>>64070221
specifically cable bundling
>>64073121
lol good analogy actually
>>64074147
you know that the money for star wars has been anything but the movies?
>>64074532
Extremely limited market. Only a major movie studio with the ability to spend hundreds of millions of dollars in production costs would be capable of making full use of the Star Wars rights. There are only five of them, and if four of them aren't interested than the one that is gets to decide the price.
Google TV and Google Fiber will rape this old format of TV
>>64074741
Look, they own Marvel too, so they get a cut of every comic book and action figure ever sold. ESPN is STILL 60% of their profits and 40% of their revenue.
>>64074797
Of course, ESPN may not be doing as well, but even with cable troubles, Sports are fucking big money.
>>64070066
Good , now stream ESPN without a cable pass
>>64070066
perhaps because all E!SPN cares about is football and pop culture. they report shit on sportscenter that isnt even sports related now.
Soon all sports will have a League Pass , Sunday Ticket or some form of streaming service. Theyll charge $150 per season or something.
Cables last hope was live sports and they're losing it. Good. Hulu, Netflix and sports streaming is driving it into the dirt, good for them
>>64070066
Good, Fox sports 1 has better coverage anyway
If cable companies would charge $20 for a sports package, they could stop the bleeding.
ESPN channels (all of them, not just 2), Time Warner Channels, FOX Sports Channel, NBA, NFL, NHL. Nothing else and guaranteed they make money.
>>64073514
we need true a la cart programming and just let the awful channels die
That's what happens when you go after the Patriots
E!SPN is dying because they started pushing a liberal/celeb gossiping agenda
>>64073739
>Disney buying TimeWarner
lel that'll never get past regulators
>>64070066
Sports aren't dying; it's just that nobody wants to pay $100 a month for shitty cable and ESPN deserves to go down due to how shitty it is.
>>64073765
The NBA has been available w/o cable for years, for local affiliate games. As part of the new contract agreement, now National games are part of the initiative.
>>64074532
The movies for Star Wars are a fucking fraction of where the real money is made: Merchandise.
>>64073850
It's not an issue until 2021 when the current Turner/CBS contract ends.
>>64074147
And Disney wants a new Star Wars movie every year. On top of at least 2 tentpole Marvel films.
Has it ever dawned on you that maybe they're trying to protect themselves from the impending capital loss that ESPN is becoming?
>>64075678
Pretty sure all local NBA games are televised through cable channels and only a couple of national games are broadcasted by ABC off cable.
>>64075678
I can only speak for Laker games, but their away games were on a local channel for nearly 30 years. It ended in 2012. Every other team seems to use Fox Sports or Time Warner.
Espn is well aware. You can get all the ESPN you want on Sling now.
>>64070297
>
exactly.
combine that with the fact that rights fees increase every year and NFL contracts become a loss-leader for these networks. Kinda surprised that they haven't colluded together to lowball NFL.
>>64075614
It will if they drown them in Star Wars ads
>>64070066
>because of cord cutting
People probably watch sports more than ever now. They just don't pay for cable like it's a need anymore.
>>64074452
there was no mention of hockey or the legit deadgame i mean nba
>>64073514
Is this info available somewhere convenience for reference? It might come in handy for a paper for school. I'm asking for a good link if you have it anons, not for you to google it for me
>>64075178
>what is sling
>>64074961
Fairly sure they already do. Personally, if MLB.TV showed me my local team and I paid for my cable, I wouldn't pay for cable.
>>64074046
Nebraska fan here, Memorial Stadium becomes the 3rd largest city in the state during football games, basically because theres nothing outside of Lincoln and Omaha
>>64073514
the problem is that they already negotiated all these giant deals with sports leagues
>>64074773
they charge the same amount as cable
>>64074961
>netflix meme
when will this stop, it costs $8 because there's like a month's worth of things to watch
>>64079397
Netflix is getting 26 originals shows in 2016.
Theres a reason they have traditional channels worried and trying to lobby as many obstacles in their way as possible.
>/sp/ discussing sports
>/sp/ discussing economics
