Don’t buy ESPN’s PR talk that its 7 million-household dip in subscribers is just a blip. It’s for real, and the end of its empire will have widespread consequences for the way you watch sports and pay for TV.
Your favorite sports team is massively overvalued right now. It’s not that you ought to be losing sleep over Jerry Jones’s or Mark Cuban’s finances—they were rich before and will be rich after. But the popping and cracking noises emanating from the key support beam in our Temple of Athletics—the TV sports business—foreshadow wild disruptions ahead for the world of sports.
Like the barking dogs that sense an earth tremor before we do, ESPN’s annus horribilis is a harbinger of the Internet’s coming disintermediation of America’s half-trillion dollar sports industry. Just since mid-summer, the Disney-owned 800-pound linebacker of sports TV announced falling subscriber counts and weak ad revenues that led to a devastating media stock price rout. The network has elected to let some of its highest-profile talent go, has announced a round of significant rank-and-file layoffs, and then last month shuttered its prestigious Grantland.com sports journalism site.
Then, last week, ESPN’s SEC filing revealed a bombshell: The company had lost 7 million subscribers over the last two years.
Lol Sports industry is a multi-million dollar business they'll just come up with another way to pay for the 7M. subscribers and come up with a new show/network sports networks aren't going anywhere anytime soon
i think there are a lot of problems with the sports industry so i'd be happy if they used this as a reason to shape up, but i don't think it'll be any kind of collapse. i don't hate sports (like a lot of this forum seems to...) but i wish they'd have at least some less dominance over the market just so they could learn to stop some of the bad stuff that goes on in the industry.
Yet you all brag about how much your favorite pop star makes and who had the biggest tour? And you pay $100's of dollars to see a 1.5 hour show?
Espn is like any other magazine and tv station that you can find online, sports video's are posted everywhere now, and with their app you get constant updates.
Plus sports is not going anywhere, and will continue to be profitable and long sustaining. Baseball has been around since 1860's and not going to dissipate anytime soon.
Most baseball players more than likely are paid anywhere from $450,000-2 million. Most are not making tens of millions, and if they are, it's because they have endorsements.
Plus baseball and football takes a toll on a players body, and most last 3-5 years especially in football. And most are training all year to keep their bodies in shape. It's not like they throw on a uniform, play a game, and relax.
Ya'll think sports are going anywhere? This is more of a television and cable problem rather than lack of sports activity. They make billions of dollars in revenue. Sports have so much more impact than pop gurls
Good. It's not like sports players (and broadcasters) deserve to make all the money they make anyway, making them televised only increases their overvalue even more. They're up there with pop singers (that don't write or produce their own music) as one of the most overpaid jobs in the country tbh. If sports fans want to watch their games, they can just stream them like everybody else, no harm no foul.
If sports fans want to watch their games, they can just stream them like everybody else, no harm no foul.