With all the things that have been going on with ESPN, the firings of so many broadcasters, Disney which owns ESPN is also facing financial issues. Whether or not they will rebound remains to be seen. I am just guessing and voicing my viewpoint. So many people have cut the cord with these providers and have gone to other forms to watch their televison viewing. The economy of the U.S.A. is really not good at with all the social issues and political issues. Lastly on my provider I got billing update and my monthly bill had gone up to $278. I said enough so I went to my provider and canceled my subscription with them and subscribed to Hulu. The explanation given to me about my bill being so high was that providers ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox had a monthly fee of over $100 for broadcast fees. So when I canceled my subscription those fees went away. I still have to have internet and wifi so even with that I am saving over $100 a month. Other providers like NetFlix took a hit as well. At one time they had over one hundred million subscribers. People also got fed up with them as they kept on with increases. Before I cancelled Net Flix they had gone up to $20 a month. This also affected the writers in California who wanted part of the subscription fees. Net Flix told them that they had lost over 50 millions subscribers. So the writers like Target, Disney and Bud Light had gone down the path of woke. This was another reason people cancelled with Net Flix quit shopping at Target and quit buying Bud Light. Budweiser just announced a massive corporate layoff. With all this being said I understand that ESPN is going to sell part of their business to Trade King. Trade King has told them that the SEC must remain part of their broadcast package. This was mentioned on the Paul Finebaum show last week and Paul Finebaum did not comment. ESPN, Trade King and possibly another gambling business will be part of the business moving forward. ESPN also has told the SEC that even with Oklahoma and Texas being added to the conference that they were not going to make a substantial payout because of all the money they had lost. So as I see it the SEC will stay at a 8 game conference schedule. One final comment as I was talking a friend in the media industry he mentioned that Greg Sankey has made it perfectly clear that the SEC is content and happy at 16 teams. The conference members from my understanding do not want to add anymore teams. That is why you see so much talk about Clemson going to the BIG10. Who knows where this ends up. Finally I think sooner or later the PAC12 will get APPLE, maybe another gambling company to get to a final tv deal. Only time will tell.
ESPN - Future My opinion
- Thread starter Spurman54
- Start date
Pigs get fat and hogs get slaughtered. Greed is killing the tv and entertainment industry. ESPN and the cable companies really think people cannot live without them and they are wrong. They are beginning to see that they are wrong and they don't like it at all.
I am interested in seeing what happens to the big tv contracts with the conferences and the NFL, NBA, MLB, etc. as more and more people cut the cord and simply refuse to pay big money for tv. I foresee the networks having to cut the contract amounts with the conferences et al in the not too distant future.
I am interested in seeing what happens to the big tv contracts with the conferences and the NFL, NBA, MLB, etc. as more and more people cut the cord and simply refuse to pay big money for tv. I foresee the networks having to cut the contract amounts with the conferences et al in the not too distant future.
Money will be the downfall of college football. The whole thing has just gotten out of control. From skyrocketing coaching salaries to facility wars to billion dollar TV contracts. It's insane and unsustainable.
Add stadiums reducing seating to put in luxury boxes, another NFL concept being pushed on college football to chase dollars. NFL teams are in major metropolitan areas with big businesses that will put out big money for such things. Colleges usually aren't in big money towns and college fans aren't generally going to spend tens of thousands of dollars for luxury boxes.
College football had a good run but I'm afraid it is over.
I don't think it's over YET, but it's hanging on by a thread and has passed the point of no return, so we need to enjoy what's left of it. It will always exist in some form or another, but it will eventually be college football in name only.
I will watch college football as long as I think it is compelling and as long as I can access it reasonably easily and cost-effectively. But it's not the end-all, be-all of my existence in the fall. It just so happens that college football runs concurrently with a very robust Montana deer/elk hunting season and the tail end of my summer golf season, both of which compete for my attention on fall Saturdays. I'm not losing any sleep over conferences realignments, TV deals, and the business side of college football. I'm involved in that business only as a consumer, same as I am with the hunting and golf business. At the end of the day, the relative standing of the various conferences' TV deals and money distribution has minimal impact on my life (none of it goes into my pockets).
I think it's a long way from "over" and may never actually be "over," but I do think it has hit its apex and is trending downward.
Did so about 4-5 years ago....you can tell a big difference in $ and no difference in viewing.
I used to be a big DirecTV guy 20 years ago....but fees got out of control...especially for how little I watched TV. Was like throwing $300 out the window every month.
As @KingWard has mentioned in another thread, it doesn't matter as to what platform you view the event, CATV vs streaming, the broadcast is still being produced by ESPN, FOX etc, you still have to that channel on your streaming or CATV provider.
Cutting the chord is something you do for yourself. The main providers of lives sports and entertainment are still going to get paid some way or another. I watched ESPN before I cut the chord and I get ESPN now.
Main thing for me with cutting the cord, is that I can come and go as I please. I know ESPN is gonna get their money from me, no matter how I choose to view, but I can drop it in the offseason and then pick it back up again for college football, which is what I do. I have no use for ESPN outside of college football. When I was young, I'd have ESPN on by default. Now it's not even on my radar unless it's college football season. Streaming allows me the option of not paying them for the 7 months of the year when they serve no purpose to me.
I haven't watcher Sportscenter in years. I don't watch ANY of their other regular programming - only football or the early rounds of the Masters or US Open. That's a fact.
Boy, SportsCenter with Keith Olbermann and Dan Patrick was absolute MUST watch tv me back in the 90s. Then me and by friends would talk at school the next morning about the highlights from SportsCenter. That and Baseball Tonight during baseball season. But, yeah, I don't even know the last time I watched. I know I haven't watched since I've been married, which makes it at least 11 years.
Partly, priorities have changed. And back in the 90s, that was the best and fastest way to find out what happened in sports that day. Not so any longer.
The fact of the matter is outside of football ESPN programming is Kindergarten level. Their loss in viewership is because they are to political and folks like myself stopped watching.
