BearEatsTacos;842835750 said:
Any insight to the backstory at ESPN? Miller's Pac-12 blog was great, and indeed I felt he always understood Cal fans, even remembering the 2004 Rose Bowl that I'll undoubtedly still feel bitter about on my deathbed.
The back story is ESPN is losing a ton of subscribers. Their bogs are a money maker and its insanely easy to gather data on who is driving views and subscriptions with them.BearEatsTacos;842835750 said:
Any insight to the backstory at ESPN? Miller's Pac-12 blog was great, and indeed I felt he always understood Cal fans, even remembering the 2004 Rose Bowl that I'll undoubtedly still feel bitter about on my deathbed.
Strykur;842835768 said:
Glad Danny Kanell is gone, he fucking sucked.
6bear6;842835785 said:
Colorado Bear, how can the Pac12 Network expect to make any real money when they broadcast women's softball, soccer, etc. Men's sports are equally unwatchable unless you're a diehard college baseball junky. Effectively, Cal's major sports presentations this year have been over for more than one month. Finals are approaching and the sports diet on the Network has to rely upon reruns during the late spring and summer months. How do you maintain a sports network when nothing new is happening?
Out of desperation, I was watching a rerun of Cal v. Oregon football last night and the Network interrupted the presentation every five minutes with a profile of a Pac12 athlete. Incredibly boring. There was very little conventional advertising. [By the way, we need to watch out for the Duck's QB, he's for real.]
hanky1;842835775 said:
Too bad. Miller use to be the only writer for the PAC-12 blog. For whatever reason, they decided to hire 4-5 other writers to also cover the conference. He was, BY FAR, the best writer covering the PAC-12. It's a loss for PAC-12 coverage.
socaliganbear;842835784 said:
Ethan Strauss, fellow Cal guy, the beat writer for the Warriors is out. No beat is safe.
ferCALgm2;842835818 said:
That's a bummer. He seemed to have gotten a very good following. Interesting story: we were both in the same class and I met him at CalSO. It took me a while to realize he was the same person who wrote most of the Dubs articles for ESPN!
ColoradoBear1;842835760 said:
My first thought was wow, Pac 12/West Coast viewership might suck more than the rest of CFB, but it appears they are cutting a lot of college coverage.
http://deadspin.com/a-running-list-of-espn-layoffs-1794664091
Includes:
Big Ten Reporter Brian Bennett
SEC Football Reporter Brian Ching
Big 12 Reporter Max Olson
SEC Recruiting Analyst Derek Tyson
College Basketball Writer Eamonn Brennan (seemed to do mostly west coast/UCLA stories).
CFB Recruiting Reporter Jeremy Crabtree
CFB Reporter Brett McMurphy
Big Ten Reporter Austin Ward
Big Ten /Wisconsin Reporter Jesse Temple (Wisky had their own reporter?!)
College Basketball Reporter Dana O'Neil
My guess is ESPN is losing a ton of money on college TV contracts - most notably the CFB playoff and New Years Bowl games. I'd expect both a reduction of $$$ for CFB playoffs, the Rose Bowl and CFB in general (next p12 contract cycle is around 2023). Might be wise to expect $5-$10 million less per year - so something around $20 million instead of the ~$30 million the conference will receive per team in 2023. Fox is likely taking a complete bath on anything they put on FS1 due to abysmal ratings, but they might be doing OK with the broadcast games.
Before anyone says the Pac 12 is in a better position than other leagues due to fully owning the P12N, that's complete BS.
I'll say it again, compete BS.
The ESPN money is for primary rights, not secondary. When your primary rights go down by many, many millions, the ownership of secondary rights that bring in far, far less is really not as important. Other conference can redo their secondary rights contracts near 2023, so the current ownership will not matter. Right now, the P12Network is a $80+ million per year cost that generates only a few million per year in profit per school. Expect that to go away, but so will a lot of non rev events (and probably rightly so, it seems that the netowork is pretty high cost and flushes money away traveling to and producing event that really no one watches).
We'll have to see if the ESPN/ACC Network ever gets off the ground (digital now, but was supposed to start ~2019 as a real channel). That would be a good proxy for what the Pac 12 could have done if it partnered with a TV entity instead of doing it alone.
Ah, the gold ol'71Bear;842835830 said:
The reason for all the layoffs is a change in strategic direction. Per an article at SI.com, ESPN is moving towards personality driven programming and ramping up their focus on video content that can be accessed through mobile devices.
Yes, they are losing cable customers but these cuts are related more towards preparing for a future that will look nothing like today. Blog-driven websites are becoming a thing of the past. Also, with college conferences and professional leagues continuing to move towards streaming their content, ESPN must begin to repurpose themselves to participate in the future.....
Calcoholic;842835908 said:
And yet Mark f#&ing May still has a job.
LACalFan;842835864 said:
Bummer, Ted Miller is great. I hope he lands somewhere quickly.
XXXBEAR;842835962 said:
But they kept Rod Gilmore, didn't they?
Mr. Triangle;842835961 said:
And Steven A.
XXXBEAR;842835962 said:
But they kept Rod Gilmore, didn't they?
blungld;842836004 said:
I'm sure the executives at ESPN have all taken large pay cuts to do their part too...
1979bear;842836059 said:
If this is the start of less money being thrown at college football, I like it.
blungld;842836004 said:
I'm sure the executives at ESPN have all taken large pay cuts to do their part too...
Cal Bears Great;842835744 said:
Bummer, I always found Miller to be a fair analyst and one of the few Cal "supporters" out there.
71Bear;842835830 said:
The reason for all the layoffs is a change in strategic direction. Per an article at SI.com, ESPN is moving towards personality driven programming and ramping up their focus on video content that can be accessed through mobile devices.
Yes, they are losing cable customers but these cuts are related more towards preparing for a future that will look nothing like today. Blog-driven websites are becoming a thing of the past. Also, with college conferences and professional leagues continuing to move towards streaming their content, ESPN must begin to repurpose themselves to participate in the future.....