XXXBEAR;842835962 said:

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But they kept Rod Gilmore, didn't they?

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Quotas?

Also, does that mean John Gruden in the future might be heading back to coaching?

This is really a great summation of the issues and strategies facing ESPN and FSW, at the moment and I expect college conferences are going to go direct to consumers soon, starting with the SEC. Hope Miller finds a place in this world, as he was a knowledgable commentator.

Disney should dismantle that POS ESPN. It's become a joke.
Miller is unfortunate, but at this point ESPN needs to die and be replaced with an alternative that doesn't completely suck.

71Bear;842835830 said:

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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.....

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Still the big problem is the commitments they have made for live sports are to big.

ESPN.com doesn't make that much revenue at the moment. No ads. It's there to drive up interest in sports.... and for people to watch programming on the espn networks that charge money (through a service provider).

If they want to have the website direct people to short videos (where they can advertise), I think they will fail on that too. If you've ever clicked through to one of their promoted videos, you'd feel used - 15 sec ad, followed by 15 seconds of content. You really have to want that to content to click again.

I'd imagine they are cutting blogs that have to do with their under-performing TV products. Simply put, not driving enough traffic to TV, which is again where they make the real money.

I think their large contract commitments could even bankrupt ESPN at some point, depending on how the ownership is arranged under disney.

The Ringer had a pretty good take on the ESPN layoffs as well: https://theringer.com/espn-layoffs-d7fad2feb8d5

Quote:

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Golden State Warriors writer Ethan Strauss is out. Strauss is young(ish), cheap(er), and far more prolific (no modifier needed) than many of the veteran TV types we’ve been hearing about.

This is what’s mind-blowing about the ESPN layoffs. It’s possible that the money the network decided it had to cut is so big that it couldn’t just prune people from fading properties like SportsCenter, or more fully abandon its plan to colonize local sports pages, which had been evident for some time. Here is ESPN cutting a digital reporter covering its biggest growth sport — one of two writers it attached to maybe the most popular sports team on the planet right now.

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bluehenbear;842836099 said:

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Quite the contrary...I think they deserve bonuses for having such bravery and insight in their decisions [/snark]

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It takes real leadership to slave to profit and fire people. They probably need vacations pronto, followed by tremendous bonuses. There is a lot good in capitalism, this part is indefensible: the reverence of the corporation and the executive--the very people who decry "handouts" and government unless it is for their benefit.

burritos;842836113 said:

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Quotas?

Also, does that mean John Gruden in the future might be heading back to coaching?

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I'll repeat: Rod Gilmore is needed. John Gruden is needed. They're in the booth, helping call games. Unless we go to a one-man booth, they'll always have a jobs.

Meanwhile, who gives a damn about the 3 Pac-12 bloggers/reporters who were laid off (Ted Miller, Chantel Jennings and David Lombardi). Few will miss their work.

Heck, David Lombardi's last story for ESPN, published yesterday, was about Cal's QB coach.

When it was linked 24 hours ago on a very popular Cal football forum, there was hardly any interest:



On Twitter, nobody gave a damn, either:

Another thing: ESPN's Pac-12 blog's bio is woefully out of date -- only 1 of those 5 people still work there. And one left ESPN last year.

okaydo;842836186 said:

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I'll repeat: Rod Gilmore is needed. John Gruden is needed. They're in the booth, helping call games. Unless we go to a one-man booth, they'll always have a jobs.

Meanwhile, who gives a damn about the 3 Pac-12 bloggers/reporters who were laid off (Ted Miller, Chantel Jennings and David Lombardi). Nobody will miss their work.

Heck, David Lombardi's last story for ESPN, published yesterday, was about Cal's QB coach.

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Well, not to tempt ESPN, but are the broadcasters in the booth really needed? Consider how ESPN did the Cal game in Australia. Announcers back in the States in some studio. Sure ESPN got panned for it... but if the viewerships is not large, it may be deemed a waste. Example might be the ESPNU game on at 730pm PT when ESPN is doing a P12 game on ESPN concurrently. Or a Pac 12 Network womens soccer match in Wazzu (who knows maybe the P12N already does that).

okaydo;842836188 said:

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Another thing: ESPN's Pac-12 blog's bio is woefully out of date -- only 1 of those 5 people still work there. And one left ESPN last year.

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So the Pac still has Kyle Bonagura, apparently?

Let the USC football and UCLA basketball hype train begin! (No issues with Bonagura, but that seems to be what he's covered). Give him the occasional trip to do a U of A story in hoops season, and hopefully a few up to the Bay Area. Think ESPM will have him stick with the large media markets and at least drive people to watch the premier teams?

okaydo;842836186 said:

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I'll repeat: Rod Gilmore is needed. John Gruden is needed. They're in the booth, helping call games. Unless we go to a one-man booth, they'll always have a jobs.

Meanwhile, who gives a damn about the 3 Pac-12 bloggers/reporters who were laid off (Ted Miller, Chantel Jennings and David Lombardi). Few will miss their work.

Heck, David Lombardi's last story for ESPN, published yesterday, was about Cal's QB coach.

When it was linked 24 hours ago on a very popular Cal football forum, there was hardly any interest:



On Twitter, nobody gave a damn, either:

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So is there going to be no more Pac-12 blog at all? No more conference-specific blogs?

Former CSN Bay Area Anchor and reporter, Jaymee Sire was also let go. This hottie covered all of the BA teams!

Mr. Triangle;842835961 said:

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And Steven A.

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Why in God's name do they retain that guy? It isn't passion that he sells, it's noise!

ColoradoBear1;842836189 said:

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Well, not to tempt ESPN, but are the broadcasters in the booth really needed? Consider how ESPN did the Cal game in Australia. Announcers back in the States in some studio. Sure ESPN got panned for it... but if the viewerships is not large, it may be deemed a waste. Example might be the ESPNU game on at 730pm PT when ESPN is doing a P12 game on ESPN concurrently. Or a Pac 12 Network womens soccer match in Wazzu (who knows maybe the P12N already does that).

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The future is already the present. ESPN did 175 college basketball games remotely this year.

https://barneystj.com/2015/06/15/espn-explores-innovative-remote-integration-model/

The WSJ today said that Andy Katz, Jay Crawford and Ed Werder were some of the people discharged. If I had to take anything from that I would surmise they are ridding themselves of people who have been around awhile and make a lot of money due to longevity. They seem to be following the Fox News formula of having hot-looking babes do the sports news. It worked for Roger Ailes.....oops!

Calcoholic;842835908 said:

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And yet Mark f#&ing May still has a job.

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"While there has been not public announcement, Awful Announcing has learned Mark May is no longer with ESPN."

Ted Miller's contract was renewed in January, according to Bruce Feldman on his podcast.

grandmastapoop;842836204 said:

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The future is already the present. ESPN did 175 college basketball games remotely this year.

https://barneystj.com/2015/06/15/espn-explores-innovative-remote-integration-model/

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...and one football game last season. Of course, it wasn't the fact that the game was announced remotely, it was the fact that the announcers were totally disinterested in doing their job.

They laid off the journalists and kept the talking heads. There isn't a career in journalism anymore, and this has already had a terrible impact on our democracy. https://www.thenation.com/article/why-the-espn-layoffs-are-so-disappointing/

rrhea;842836798 said:

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They laid off the journalists and kept the talking heads. There isn't a career in journalism anymore, and this has already had a terrible impact on our democracy. https://www.thenation.com/article/why-the-espn-layoffs-are-so-disappointing/

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Really good article.

okaydo;842836186 said:

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Heck, David Lombardi's last story for ESPN, published yesterday, was about Cal's QB coach.

When it was linked 24 hours ago on a very popular Cal football forum, there was hardly any interest:



On Twitter, nobody gave a damn, either:

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Now I feel responsible for getting Ted Miler fired

I loved ESPN when it came out and for a couple of decades afterwards. However, I couldn't stomach it for the last five years or so and have stopped watching unless a live Cal sports event is broadcast. The same thing happened when CNN came out. When I needed a news fix - I could turn to CNN any time of the day. After a couple of decades, I can't stand it.

Both suffer from the same malady - the went away from what made them great (probably the truth is the internet provided better options for 24 hour access to sports and news). Regardless, I stopped watching CNN, MSNBC, FOX because I wanted information and all they gave me was a talking head yelling their opinion at me. Ever since Disney took over ESPN, there was a steady move from highlights, and intelligent sports analysis to talking heads yelling their opinion at me. I guess that makes money or brings in viewers or something - but I simply can't stomach any of it anymore and don't really know many reasonable people who can.

An opinion provokes controversy. Controversy provokes thinking which compels you to take one side or the other. You may find affirmation of your beliefs or just the opposite, but like a magnet it draws you in. The bland recitation of the news is what drove viewers to watch those three networks instead of Lester Holt with one-half hour (actually 22 minutes) of so-called news.

6bear6;842837177 said:

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An opinion provokes controversy. Controversy provokes thinking which compels you to take one side or the other. You may find affirmation of your beliefs or just the opposite, but like a magnet it draws you in. The bland recitation of the news is what drove viewers to watch those three networks instead of Lester Holt with one-half hour (actually 22 minutes) of so-called news.

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You're right - bland Lester Holt is also bad (boring, but not annoying). Lots of things besides opinion provoke controversy. And lots of things besides controversy provoke thinking. To each his (or her) own. But my issue is NOT with opinion or controversy, but style and delivery - it is simply unbearable on ESPN (and News networks and many more) these days.

I think Jaymee Sire is a great example of how ESPN gets it wrong. When she was covering bay area sports, she had good insight and depth of coverage and pacing and focus and was simply a pleasure to listen to. She was cute too, but that was just frosting. She went to ESPN, they sent her to a salon, strapped on some high heels and glam and put her in front of a teleprompter spewing little substance - but she sure looked good (at least to Disney's ideal of feminine attraction). I couldn't watch it anymore.

Hey - I get it. I don't fit the target demographic. I'm OK with it. But, viewership of all of these networks seems to be decreasing and their reaction does not appear to be working. Sears and JCPenney and Kmart and many others will be gone soon. Most daily print media has evaporated (and the trees rejoice!). Anyone else remember broadcast nightly news on ABC, CBS, NBC -
do they even exist anymore? Their time has come and gone - they did not adapt. I think ESPN and CNN and FOX and MSNBC and many others will be in the same category soon. However, I thought reality TV would fit that bill - and boy have I been wrong!

Change is good.

So do we need a "ProPublica" for sports journalism?

Looperbear;842836908 said:

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Really good article.

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I feel very lucky that I saw the writing on the wall in the early 90s, and got out of journalism when I was young enough to switch to an alternative career path. The reality is that journalism as a career is dead, because the means of paying for it, advertising, is also mostly dead, and the consumers so far haven't been willing to pay enough directly for the product to allow practitioners to earn a living. Therefore, journalism is basically a hobby someone has to do on the side, as in the operators of BI, or something that is subsidized as a charity, a la Pro Publica or the Center for Investigative Reporting. Fortunately, I figured out 25 years ago that if a journalistic entity makes money, it mostly goes to management or stockholders, never to the people that actually produce the product, whereas the cuts always fall on the reporters. I think the only way to possibly make money now as a journalist is to go to some type of specialty publication whose audience is loyal enough to pay for it via subscription. As an example, a fairly well-known former Southern California sports columnist who got laid off now works for a magazine about trains.

6bear6;842836206 said:

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The WSJ today said that Andy Katz, Jay Crawford and Ed Werder were some of the people discharged. If I had to take anything from that I would surmise they are ridding themselves of people who have been around awhile and make a lot of money due to longevity. They seem to be following the Fox News formula of having hot-looking babes do the sports news. It worked for Roger Ailes.....oops!

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Well here's the reality that 90% of the people won't like or believe- ESPN has become far left politically and they are losing subscribers faster than the Dems have lost political seats. Most people are turned off off by combining politics with sports and they are losing their share in demographics.

6bear6;842836203 said:

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Why in God's name do they retain that guy? It isn't passion that he sells, it's noise!

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One of the few worth watching. Sharp guy!

Ncsf;842837277 said:

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Well here's the reality that 90% of the people won't like or believe- ESPN has become far left politically and they are losing subscribers faster than the Dems have lost political seats. Most people are turned off off by combining politics with sports and they are losing their share in demographics.

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If conservatives are canceling their subs to ESPN, then they are canceling their subs to Fox News...

okaydo;842837280 said:

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If conservatives are canceling their subs to ESPN, then they are canceling their subs to Fox News...

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right...you don't just "cancel" ESPN. At the very least they are part of a sports package, but to your point, "cord cutters" cut it all.

Ncsf;842837277 said:

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Well here's the reality that 90% of the people won't like or believe- ESPN has become far left politically and they are losing subscribers faster than the Dems have lost political seats. Most people are turned off off by combining politics with sports and they are losing their share in demographics.

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I watched hours of the Draft...didn't notice one political mention. Every Cal game on ESPN, football and basketball (might have missed some hoop)...if you want to call Walton too liberal, okay, but he doesn't work just for them anyway, and he is too "left coast" not too "left wing" on telecasts.
The 30 for 30 series is nothing but great reporting and great stories. I don't remember one in particular being "bent over backwards" liberal, but is there an example I am missing?
The ESPY's? There are a lot of reasons not to watch the ESPY's.
So, what examples are bugging conservatives the most when it comes to ESPN? Stephen A. Smith? I run hot and cold on him no matter his politics.

The reason the VCR died was because the people who made them were too liberal.

Same for video stores.

Same for MTV.

Same for flip phones.

Same for 8-track tapes.

Same for black and white TV.

mbBear;842837307 said:

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I watched hours of the Draft...didn't notice one political mention. Every Cal game on ESPN, football and basketball (might have missed some hoop)...if you want to call Walton too liberal, okay, but he doesn't work just for them anyway, and he is too "left coast" not too "left wing" on telecasts.
The 30 for 30 series is nothing but great reporting and great stories. I don't remember one in particular being "bent over backwards" liberal, but is there an example I am missing?
The ESPY's? There are a lot of reasons not to watch the ESPY's.
So, what examples are bugging conservatives the most when it comes to ESPN? Stephen A. Smith? I run hot and cold on him no matter his politics.

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I think the 6 pm SportsCenter has garnered the most rage among conservatives making the politics excuse.

But, hey, there are prominent conservatives on ESPN, such as Sam Ponder, the newly promoted host of NFL Sunday Countdown. (She's tweeted conservative viewpoints on abortion, and gays, and a few weeks ago she retweeted that Sebastian Gorka guy.)

And this is Lee Fitting, who was promoted last year from being in charge of College Gameday to running ESPN's entire college football programming. He tweeted this in response to anti-Trump protests.

Paul Kuharsky, the Tennessee Titans' beat writer for ESPN, got a pink slip, too. He is a co-host on a radio show in Nashville. He's ordinarily outlandish in his thought process, but he's the kind of guy you can't help but laugh with and laugh at.

okaydo;842837312 said:

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The reason the VCR died was because the people who made them were too liberal.

Same for video stores.

Same for MTV.

Same for flip phones.

Same for 8-track tapes.

Same for black and white TV.





I think the 6 pm SportsCenter has garnered the most rage among conservatives making the politics excuse.

But, hey, there are prominent conservatives on ESPN, such as Sam Ponder, the newly promoted host of NFL Sunday Countdown. (She's tweeted conservative viewpoints on abortion, and gays, and a few weeks ago she retweeted that Sebastian Gorka guy.)

And this is Lee Fitting, who was promoted last year from being in charge of College Gameday to running ESPN's entire college football programming. He tweeted this in response to anti-Trump protests.

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I also like when it becomes a narrative, not based on personal experience. Like calling CNN too liberal. Jeffery Lord was an articulate, continuing presence on CNN all during the election, and might have won Trump the election. Kayleigh McEnany was not nearly as smart/articulate as Lord, but made the case for Trump almost nightly.

Ncsf;842837277 said:

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Well here's the reality that 90% of the people won't like or believe- ESPN has become far left politically and they are losing subscribers faster than the Dems have lost political seats. Most people are turned off off by combining politics with sports and they are losing their share in demographics.

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Personally I agree that ESPN has been politicizing sports way too much but its just not the reason why this is happening.


https://www.yahoo.com/news/no-espn-apos-layoffs-aren-191032019.html

"For sports channels in particular, the outlook is just as dire. In October and November 2016, when ESPN lost those million-plus subscribers, just three of the sports cable channels that Nielsen monitors each month ― the NFL Network, the Golf Channel and BeIN Sport Espanol ― gained subscribers. The rest ― everyone from NBC Sports to the MLB Network and NBA TV ― suffered, with many of them taking proportionally larger hits than ESPN.

The fate of Fox Sports was no different. Over those two months, Fox Sports 1 lost 573,000 subscribers, according to Nielsen. Fox Sports 2 lost 1.4 million. In February of this year, ESPN lost 422,000 subscribers. FS1, which was already in fewer homes, exceeded that drop, losing 565,000. FS1 had spent much of the last few years gaining on ESPN, but that trend reversed itself recently: February was the third consecutive month in which FS1 lost more subscribers than ESPN (though FS2 has been gaining subscribers). And over the last two years, Fox Sports has undertaken multiple rounds of job cuts itself.

In other words, cable networks that aren't allegedly seeking to spread the liberal gospel through sports are losing too.

The company, which charges cable providers roughly $7 a month per subscriber just to carry its flagship channel, derives as much as two-thirds of its annual revenue from subscriber fees, so the departure of those subscribers is a direct hit on its bottom line. Advertising rates are also falling. Meanwhile, ESPN is paying more to broadcast live sports. It will spend $7.3 billion on broadcast rights fees to major sports leagues this year."