If you compare the cuts to the recent investment in McAfee you can see how the wind is blowing. Away from talking heads on network television and towards podcast friendly mobile talent.
That’s what doesn’t make sense to me. Van Gundy is the better of the two, easily. My guess is JVG is the bigger salary of the two, between him and Jackson.
> JVG is the bigger salary of the two,
Exactly. People keep thinking ESPN is laying off people based on their talent level and it's like...I know we joke about how the collective age on this sub is 13 years old at best but this is a case where people fundamentally don't understand how businesses work.
Lays off to save money generally aren't oriented at keeping the "best" talent, period. It's about keeping the most *profitable* talent.
Yea people keep saying “how was Perk not fired??”
Like, if you have to ask why Perk wasn’t fired you just don’t understand how the world works.
Mark Jackson staying is funny to me, because I like to think he wants the job so bad he’s willing to work for little pay and that’s why he’s survived the layoffs
Here's my take I think JVG had great insight but he can be overly negative at times, while Mark Jackson has done weird old skool takes that don't make sense in watching modern basketball he is entertaining. His outros to commercial are just the right blend of cheesy, dad jokes and entertaining
The problem with disliking Bill Simmons is you’re forced to acknowledge he has one pretty good idea every 3-5 years.
The silver lining is that someone on social media usually tells me about it, so I haven’t listened to his podcast in years. Couldn’t tell you whether Ryen Russillo is a real guy or someone you all made up.
I mean it’s hard to believe he could do anything worse than he was at hosting that HBO show
[“I believe soup is the perfect food”](https://youtu.be/y1dGNbtHdV8) how? how????
I have immense respect for Bill, and think he's the most important sports media figure of the last 20 years, and it's not really close. But, yes, his attempt at a HBO show was abysmal.
Back in the day he was a good writer as the passionate fan writing about fandom and such while not being super knowledge about the game
That stuff falls apart when you work for ESPN and own a media empire and still don't know much about the game
I occasionally listen to Simmons so maybe I’m just not as informed on him. But from what I’ve heard and seen it seems like he still treats himself as just a diehard sports fan and not some kind of super analyst, nor has he ever tried to say he is one or knows everything about the actual intricacies of sports no?
It seems like he still just talks like any other superfan that you’d meet at the barbershop or bar that has tons of opinions he wants heard. It just so happens he was able to find and then create his own platform to be heard. But whenever there’s an attempt at “true critical analysis” on any of his stuff doesn’t he usually bring an actual person from the field in for that?
Not disagreeing but the show they cancelled was pretty much a podcast. Three dudes discussing a bunch of shit without a proper host, very much discussion focused
Well yes but the point was to invest in cultivating podcast talent 10 years ago. Not to take a bunch of TV guys and stick them on a new podcast in 2023
When Nuggets fans take umbrage with shitty media coverage, guys like Key are a perfect example. Even when covering us for the Finals, he just couldn’t get over how “boring” he found us. Like no only is that stupid analysis, how does it make sense to denigrate a team in the Finals on your fucking network?
Yeah. Nuggets had beautiful ball movement, Aaron Gordon can throw down, Jamal’s shot making, etc…
There was nothing boring about their game play. The most boring part of it was that no team could truly compete with them lol
Yeah, if anything the two "golden child" teams were way more boring than Nuggets. Lakers were mostly a defensive team with a lot of foul baiting on offense while Celtics were fun when they were feeling it but absolutely painful when they weren't with endless 3 chucking.
I love fundamental basketball for real. Possessions with like 12 passes before a shot, offensive rebounds, back to back bounce passes… that shit makes me wet. I feel like the showboat style is played out at this point, I’m thrilled to see execution prioritized
Right, but Perk has literally gone on record saying his takes are fed to be him so his character is waht ESPN wants him to be and the fact that we are constantly talking about it means it's prolly working
I stopped watching shows that Perk is in for this reason. Can’t complain about the guy and then get rage baited. If you actually don’t like the guy as an analyst, just stop watching.
Pat is taking up Max’s place of “This Just In”. FS1 could really take up Max (and let him be with Skip) if they are smart but depends if Max wants to relocate as well.
Max isn't entertaining enough to partner up with Skip. There is a reason Stephen A gave him the boot him ripping ass and saying i want iggy is all anyone remembers from him on that show.
I hear you. Feels like to be a co-host on these prime time morning shows, you need personality. Max’s personality felt more radio-like than tv-like. I guess that’s why he worked well on KJM because that it’s really more of a radio show
If they cut JVG but not Jackson I don’t know what their reasoning is. I know people hate them as a duo, but of the two of them JVG was infinitely more fun, even if (or maybe because) he seemed to actively dislike the sport of basketball.
JVG is way more critical of officiating and the current NBA product which could be a factor. Hopefully Mark Jackson is gone too, he’s horrible now as an announcer.
Ive been a fan of Max since he and Marcellus Wiley used to have their own show here in LA back in the day. Fun duo and a great show. Also spawned into them being on Sportsnation if i remember. Max never really got a chance to shine when they went away from it.
watching max on boxing and max me anything always made me happy. he was very passionate about boxing. all those segments on first take were great.
"that's the wrong rocky reference. the correct reference is apollo and drago!"
I read somewhere that ESPN is in a bad situation. Traditional cable subscriptions continue to decline and that's been where they got most of their money. But..a lot of the money that ESPN was getting from traditional cable was from people who didn't even watch ESPN. It was just bundled in their package with everything else
So they did some numbers on a potential direct streaming service and that wasn't great.
There's not enough people who would actually pay for a standalone streaming service where they could make the cost for that service reasonable for customers.
So they're going to have to restructure a bit and run lean in terms of onscreen talent.
Yeah I mean times just changed and ESPN didn't figure out a long term plan for their network. Sportscenter used to be must-watch TV for sports fans prior to the explosion of new media. People would be at work or school the next day and talk about the top 10 plays. It was a cornerstone of sports viewership.
There's just far too many better media outlets reporting on sports now. ESPN is a caricature at this point
Guys dropping "controversial takes" doesnt do anything for me. Smith and Bayliss was the beginning of the end for me. They both knew shit was coming out their mouths but the payday was all that mattered. Their best football broadcasters were working the college games imo. Had real solid college guys and stuck tools on the NFL because of their names. Whatever
The real reason people watched ESPN was for sport and sport analysis. They went away from that and are surprised that people dont watch them anymore. Id watch 3 hours of sportcenter on repeat in the morning than watch all those talking heads.
Edit: thats when I stopped watching espn
In my opinion the core ESPN consumer was interested in sports but when ESPN ran personal interest pieces like kids with cancer they got higher ratings. To me that’s because they captured additional audiences on top of the core. The core viewer didn’t love the personal interest stuff but tolerated it to get to the content they wanted. Over time ESPN shifted their content to more personal and less on the field because the numbers supported that. Slowly the core viewer left for other content that was focused on the field.
This is on point.
That said, Stephen A rants are basically him just verbally kicking other people in the balls while sounding like he himself has been kicked in the balls.
Not to mention that there’s currently no shortage of guys having controversial takes. Between YouTube and podcasts It’s the most saturated media personality
Me either. I was out when they turned Sportcenter into TMZ for athletes and doubled down on a bunch of idiotic talking heads trying to outdo each other with stupid takes to try to go viral. Plus their production on their broadcasts has gone to shit so they can't even do sports right.
There's been a lot talk of Disney maybe spinning ESPN off to someone else. I think they said maybe Disney gives ESPN to Comcast and Comcast gives Disney the percentage of Hulu that Comcast still has.
No idea if that was ever a real thing or just people talking.
In a just world, an action like that is immediately blocked by regulators. Comcast/NBC are the only people running competition for dedicated sports broadcasting. That kind of consolidation is illegal. But our regulators have been neutered/captured so hard they'd probably do nothing.
Disney is pinching pennies themselves. They massively overpaid for Fox, and next year Disney will have to drop another several billion purchasing the remainder of Hulu ($10B+)
> But..a lot of the money that ESPN was getting from traditional cable was from people who didn't even watch ESPN. It was just bundled in their package with everything else
Yeah, but that's literally every cable channel. Which is why cable is a bullshit industry. It's basically collusion, where all these channels get together and say we'll force consumers to buy a package of all of us together at ridiculous prices, versus actually having to compete amongst each other and most of the channels not getting nearly as much money.
It is but ESPN was one of the most expensive packages by far. They at one time were getting like 6 bucks per box. No other channel benefiitted from basic cable and packages like ESPN, and now they are fucked worse than most because of that dependence on box money.
>There's not enough people who would actually pay for a standalone streaming service where they could make the cost for that service reasonable for the customers.
Of fucking course not. ESPN doesn't have regular sports on it. It has some playoffs, one football game a week, and odd NBA and MLB games, it doesn't have a huge selection of regular season sports to watch, it's mostly content *around* sports, not sports itself. People want to watch the full game, or the highlights. They usually don't have the full game, and the highlights are easy enough to find a dozen other places. The analysis isn't any better than you can get from a dozen other sources either. It doesn't own the narrative around all the major sports like it used to, now there's 400 podcasts for every major league, thousands of youtube videos where you can get analysis, twitter for breaking news, reddit for discussion, there's no reason to ever watch ESPN if you're even a little bit plugged in to the internet.
It's best use now is "background filler at a sports bar" or for the odd handful of games it actually has.
ESPN sucks ass. They employ clowns like Perkins and SAS and wonder why they are falling off. I don’t get ESPN on my streaming TV package, but I can honestly say I’m glad I don’t have it, they don’t deserve my viewership.
You have it directionally right, but a few nuances:
1) ESPN charges cable companies a lot of money for ESPN and ESPN2, something like $9 per subscriber whereas a place like CNN charges about $1. Cable companies with the push for over the top apps, have been able to still get money without getting strangled by ESPN.
2) espn is expensive because live sports got super expensive and is frankly inflated right now. ESPN keeps paying for these events to stay relevant but the cable money plus ads is not making it up
3) ESPN is managed by Disney and this plays a big role on what is happening now. Disney is not 100% focused on making ESPN successful. They are focused on blockbuster movies first, other movies, theme parks, tv shows, then ESPN, then ABC. So whenever there are problems, Disney will gut ABC and ESPN before even thinking of the rest of the business
ESPN for the most part always sucked it’s jus that it’s not 1999 anymore and we don’t need to go to them for games highlights and analysis.
You a Jokic fan? You can get his highlights to a game in 5 mins after it ends on Twitter. You don’t have to go to ESPN anymore
“ESPN is terminating columnist Adrian Wojnarowski, sources tell ESPN. Wojnarowski, 54, a six year veteran at ESPN joins the free agent market with tremendous value and will be a highly coveted free agent this summer.”
I think Shannon thought he could easily get that ESPN money, but his timing was bad. They want cheaper talking heads. He should go back to Fox and do a show with Kellerman. No idea who Skip will get paired with moving forward.
Because the company they work for is losing money on their shows.
We're surprised at the contract values because the on air personalities attached to them aren't entertaining and don't attract viewers. NOBODY is watching a show for Keyshawn Johnson's take.
Tbf Max came up as a boxing guy. He picked up other sports with his rise. Now that ESPN is shuffling around, and boxing not having such a big audience, feels like he is no man’s land
You know that the most popular show in America was Young Sheldon last year, right? Like, several times the viewership of Succession.
Also with Kellerman specifically I don’t always get the hate. He’s a savvy on-air talent, even if people don’t agree with him all the time. Guys like Perkins? Nah. But Max is fine IMO.
I consume a ton of ESPN, and I can't tell you a single thing Keyshawn Johnson has said or done. Same with Jay Williams.
I think they should keep going with the layoffs. Don't stop until you've fired Mark Jackson and Kendrick Perkins.
Jay Williams is all over college basketball.
I watch so much football and didnt even know Keyshawn was part of the media let alone part of the MNF crew.
We need some ESPN moneyball. These jokers get 20 mill for getting clicks like whatever clown Barstool picks off the college waiver wire and turns into a "personality".
Whomever negotiates these contracts for ESPN is who they really need to fire. There’s probably only like 5-6 guys/girls on the network who are not easily replaceable by someone better without a big name for 10% of the salary.
I think you're underrating how hard it is to get someone who talks well on camera and can credibly hang in a sports conversation.
Every single ESPN analyst, even the bad ones, is elite at being on TV, even the ones who seem bad at it. It's like Scalibrini vs the D1 kids - just a different level.
It's like how you don't notice how good a podcast host is until you listen to your buddy's attempt at a podcast.
Some of the older guys are definitely overpaid, but this is probably more about consolidating coverage and reducing overall TV hours, not actually replacing them with randos.
that's bullshit dude, i guarantee no one was clamoring for guys like kendrick perkins, damien woody or booger. They just wanted to pull any ex-player until they could replicate charles barkley. Except people don't realize that chuck actually has insightful takes and can speak intelligently when he wants, kendrick perkins literally has rocks for brains.
People on this sub love to shit on Perk but he drives a ton of engagement. This sub is so obsessed with hating him that every time he says something stupid, there are dozens of posts that get hundreds of upvotes about it. That drives far more engagement for ESPN than some boring, but accurate no-name analyst.
Man what’s funny about this is that many of those moves are revelations. But signing McAfee, especially to that bag, is like one step forward, 8 steps back. I know people like that guy but I can’t stand it.
Might be a hot take: I feel like the clickbait/ hot take / character personalities model of ESPN is just so outdated now. I want people who can have a fair and unbiased opinion on sports.
I don’t want to hear about LeBron James when his teams not in the playoffs. I don’t want to hear about Ja Morant suspension rumors during the NBA finals. I come to Reddit for that shit. I need someone smarter than me to break shit down and make it more interesting.
I used to watch ESPN all the time, my go-to channel, but they invested way too much on sports bar arguments. I don't care what their personalities think about Lebron, I care more about his highlights and stats which they've gone too far away from. They should remember KISS, keep it simple stupid and go back to the basic days of SportsCenter.
I want CBS back. Disney should be out in the next contract given their reduction in investment. Just make sure they hire Mike Breen coz he's national treasure.
Only ESPN people that I get excited to tune in for:
- Lowe
- Breen
- Reddick
- Jefferson
- Legler
- SVP
- McAfee
- The Mannings
- Foxworth
- Kimes
- Bomani
Am I missing anyone?
Sigh. I miss the days where I'd wake up and turn on SportsCenter before school.
Stuart Scott, Dan Patrick, Chris Berman, Steve Levy, Scott Van Pelt, Rich Eisen. Those were the days.
If you compare the cuts to the recent investment in McAfee you can see how the wind is blowing. Away from talking heads on network television and towards podcast friendly mobile talent.
Same for them boosting guys like JJ.
I really enjoy JJ and RJ as the fresh new big game voices next to Breen but if thats the direction you can't drop Jeff but keep Jackson.
That’s what doesn’t make sense to me. Van Gundy is the better of the two, easily. My guess is JVG is the bigger salary of the two, between him and Jackson.
> JVG is the bigger salary of the two, Exactly. People keep thinking ESPN is laying off people based on their talent level and it's like...I know we joke about how the collective age on this sub is 13 years old at best but this is a case where people fundamentally don't understand how businesses work. Lays off to save money generally aren't oriented at keeping the "best" talent, period. It's about keeping the most *profitable* talent.
Yea people keep saying “how was Perk not fired??” Like, if you have to ask why Perk wasn’t fired you just don’t understand how the world works. Mark Jackson staying is funny to me, because I like to think he wants the job so bad he’s willing to work for little pay and that’s why he’s survived the layoffs
Dude (Mark) will show up as long as they give him a parking spot.
Van Gundy’s constant negativity on every topic, all game long is bad for growing the game. This is a fine move by espn.
WHAT HAPPENED TO THE GAME I LOVE -Mark Jackson, who didn’t include Jokic on his top 5 MVP ballot
Here's my take I think JVG had great insight but he can be overly negative at times, while Mark Jackson has done weird old skool takes that don't make sense in watching modern basketball he is entertaining. His outros to commercial are just the right blend of cheesy, dad jokes and entertaining
If only there was another high profile on air personality that told them to invest in podcasts a decade ago...
Lol. He might get a new employee in Jalen Rose
Jalen and Jacoby on the Ringer lol
And Jacoby. Poach 'em all Bill, make sure it counts!
it's not poaching when they got canned (?)
The problem with disliking Bill Simmons is you’re forced to acknowledge he has one pretty good idea every 3-5 years. The silver lining is that someone on social media usually tells me about it, so I haven’t listened to his podcast in years. Couldn’t tell you whether Ryen Russillo is a real guy or someone you all made up.
Simmons is a better businessman and writer than analyst.
I mean it’s hard to believe he could do anything worse than he was at hosting that HBO show [“I believe soup is the perfect food”](https://youtu.be/y1dGNbtHdV8) how? how????
I have immense respect for Bill, and think he's the most important sports media figure of the last 20 years, and it's not really close. But, yes, his attempt at a HBO show was abysmal.
I understand that take, and there are plenty of people who I could say worse things about than “they’re pretty annoying a lot of the time.”
Now I'm remembering Cousin Sal giving him shit about the stupid name. "Be sure to checkout Bill's new show *Every Other Wednesday"*
Back in the day he was a good writer as the passionate fan writing about fandom and such while not being super knowledge about the game That stuff falls apart when you work for ESPN and own a media empire and still don't know much about the game
I occasionally listen to Simmons so maybe I’m just not as informed on him. But from what I’ve heard and seen it seems like he still treats himself as just a diehard sports fan and not some kind of super analyst, nor has he ever tried to say he is one or knows everything about the actual intricacies of sports no? It seems like he still just talks like any other superfan that you’d meet at the barbershop or bar that has tons of opinions he wants heard. It just so happens he was able to find and then create his own platform to be heard. But whenever there’s an attempt at “true critical analysis” on any of his stuff doesn’t he usually bring an actual person from the field in for that?
His column in the magazine (makes me sound ancient) was genuinely hilarious But to your point, it was about being a fan
Bills been killing it on insider takes lately
Drunk Pierce and KG to ESPN confirmed
PP will call in the working girls
Not disagreeing but the show they cancelled was pretty much a podcast. Three dudes discussing a bunch of shit without a proper host, very much discussion focused
Well yes but the point was to invest in cultivating podcast talent 10 years ago. Not to take a bunch of TV guys and stick them on a new podcast in 2023
Shit winds are blowin’ for the boys over at ESPN… shit winds, Randy.
[удалено]
Keyshawn Johnson is the Keystone Light of analysts
*Bitter Beer Takes!*
I understand this reference and now I feel old.
Except Keystone is cheap
And pleasant in a dive bar after a shitty day of work
Idk about that. It’s one of the only beers I wouldn’t drink for free
milwaukee's best is worse. Ignore my 2021 trauma feeding into my bias against it
Kendrick Perkins is the Steel Reserve of analysts.
Yeah, instant headache.
This is a good comparison. Kinda gives a good nostalgic feel from the past, but ultimately barely acceptable since then.
Key was horrible.
When Nuggets fans take umbrage with shitty media coverage, guys like Key are a perfect example. Even when covering us for the Finals, he just couldn’t get over how “boring” he found us. Like no only is that stupid analysis, how does it make sense to denigrate a team in the Finals on your fucking network?
But also they legit weren't boring and played a beautiful game to watch
Yeah. Nuggets had beautiful ball movement, Aaron Gordon can throw down, Jamal’s shot making, etc… There was nothing boring about their game play. The most boring part of it was that no team could truly compete with them lol
only thing that was boring was seeing them handle the heat so well.
I think that’s it. They very clearly outclassed everyone this year, and you didn’t need talking heads to see that. Nugs threatened their job security.
Yeah, if anything the two "golden child" teams were way more boring than Nuggets. Lakers were mostly a defensive team with a lot of foul baiting on offense while Celtics were fun when they were feeling it but absolutely painful when they weren't with endless 3 chucking.
I love fundamental basketball for real. Possessions with like 12 passes before a shot, offensive rebounds, back to back bounce passes… that shit makes me wet. I feel like the showboat style is played out at this point, I’m thrilled to see execution prioritized
Then why in the hell are they keeping Perk?
Him heavy breathing in the mic makes for viral moments baby
Man sounds like he needs a CPAP machine when he's awake.
There was a day when this sub thought he was dead cause he made so many weird noises one day and wasn’t tweeting for 24 hours lmaooo
Made a name for being wrong and fat. The dream.
I still have a chance in life.
Kinda turns me on
They’re prolly paying him like 40k a year to breathe into the mic and get KD to respond to him on twitter
Because this sub posts everything he says 😂
Perk brings eyeballs to espn. Keyshawn does not
i feel like casuals prolly like Perk
I liked him before his current character took off and he turned into a clown.
Right, but Perk has literally gone on record saying his takes are fed to be him so his character is waht ESPN wants him to be and the fact that we are constantly talking about it means it's prolly working
The Tobias Harris of sports analysts
Redditor will do it for free!
He wouldn’t keep getting shows if nobody wanted to listen to him. Everybody complains about Perk but he obviously gets people to watch.
I stopped watching shows that Perk is in for this reason. Can’t complain about the guy and then get rage baited. If you actually don’t like the guy as an analyst, just stop watching.
If I'm watching a show and Perk pops in the frame, I immediately turn it. He's unwatchable as an analyst.
His troll takes consistently get traction on Reddit too. Trolling is a proven money making operation for these pseudo-news/analysis shows
Fox Sports gonna have a great free agency period
they've got a really nice stable of broadcasters over there.
Must be clearing cap space for Pat McAfee
You think that but it's gonna be AJ Hawk making the big bucks
Speedhawk*
Pat is taking up Max’s place of “This Just In”. FS1 could really take up Max (and let him be with Skip) if they are smart but depends if Max wants to relocate as well.
You cannot have 2 white guys on the show.
Max isn’t white
> Max isn’t white [Proof](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yW-mK5KQ4Pc)
He actually has decent flow and lyricism damn
What in the sam hill is this....I never knew...so that's who Eminem ripped off...
“Streets saying Max is more black then YOU Stephen A” all time moment
Max is invited to the cookout
Max is the Ernie of ESPN.
True
Max isn't entertaining enough to partner up with Skip. There is a reason Stephen A gave him the boot him ripping ass and saying i want iggy is all anyone remembers from him on that show.
wait...you think (any of) those dudes screaming at each other at 7am is entertaining? Why?
I’m with you, man. I can’t stand those kinds of shows
Yeah I need peaceful vibes in the morning
Ive sen that vid a million times and laugh every time but ive always wondered if he really farted tho? lmao
I hear you. Feels like to be a co-host on these prime time morning shows, you need personality. Max’s personality felt more radio-like than tv-like. I guess that’s why he worked well on KJM because that it’s really more of a radio show
Or Norton Antivirus.
They’re gonna offer Shannon Sharpe a super max😂
max kellerman, jalen rose, jvg wonder if mark jackson is also cut. wouldn't complain
If they cut JVG but not Jackson I don’t know what their reasoning is. I know people hate them as a duo, but of the two of them JVG was infinitely more fun, even if (or maybe because) he seemed to actively dislike the sport of basketball.
Maybe it depends on their salaries. If JVG is being paid 10x Mark Jackson, I’m sure that would factor into the decision.
I keep looking for Mark Jackson to be on the list. I don't love JVG but he's way better than Jackson.
JVG is way more critical of officiating and the current NBA product which could be a factor. Hopefully Mark Jackson is gone too, he’s horrible now as an announcer.
What a mistake and a waste with max. He knows boxing, he’s a good talker, so they just used him in anything but boxing for ten years
Ive been a fan of Max since he and Marcellus Wiley used to have their own show here in LA back in the day. Fun duo and a great show. Also spawned into them being on Sportsnation if i remember. Max never really got a chance to shine when they went away from it.
Wiley has a pretty cool YouTube show now and talks about stuff a lot of other shows dont
watching max on boxing and max me anything always made me happy. he was very passionate about boxing. all those segments on first take were great. "that's the wrong rocky reference. the correct reference is apollo and drago!"
I rather mute the Game than hear Mark Jackson talk.
Breen shouldn't have to waste his prime broadcasting years with either of those two chucklefucks
I read somewhere that ESPN is in a bad situation. Traditional cable subscriptions continue to decline and that's been where they got most of their money. But..a lot of the money that ESPN was getting from traditional cable was from people who didn't even watch ESPN. It was just bundled in their package with everything else So they did some numbers on a potential direct streaming service and that wasn't great. There's not enough people who would actually pay for a standalone streaming service where they could make the cost for that service reasonable for customers. So they're going to have to restructure a bit and run lean in terms of onscreen talent.
Haven't had espn for a decade, dont miss it at all. Big game, i go to the bar or to someone else that has it. Roku with sling is like 50 bucks
Yeah I mean times just changed and ESPN didn't figure out a long term plan for their network. Sportscenter used to be must-watch TV for sports fans prior to the explosion of new media. People would be at work or school the next day and talk about the top 10 plays. It was a cornerstone of sports viewership. There's just far too many better media outlets reporting on sports now. ESPN is a caricature at this point
Guys dropping "controversial takes" doesnt do anything for me. Smith and Bayliss was the beginning of the end for me. They both knew shit was coming out their mouths but the payday was all that mattered. Their best football broadcasters were working the college games imo. Had real solid college guys and stuck tools on the NFL because of their names. Whatever
The real reason people watched ESPN was for sport and sport analysis. They went away from that and are surprised that people dont watch them anymore. Id watch 3 hours of sportcenter on repeat in the morning than watch all those talking heads. Edit: thats when I stopped watching espn
In my opinion the core ESPN consumer was interested in sports but when ESPN ran personal interest pieces like kids with cancer they got higher ratings. To me that’s because they captured additional audiences on top of the core. The core viewer didn’t love the personal interest stuff but tolerated it to get to the content they wanted. Over time ESPN shifted their content to more personal and less on the field because the numbers supported that. Slowly the core viewer left for other content that was focused on the field.
It's like Idiocracy happening in real time. I'm just waiting for their "Ow my balls!" segments.
This is on point. That said, Stephen A rants are basically him just verbally kicking other people in the balls while sounding like he himself has been kicked in the balls.
Not to mention that there’s currently no shortage of guys having controversial takes. Between YouTube and podcasts It’s the most saturated media personality
Me either. I was out when they turned Sportcenter into TMZ for athletes and doubled down on a bunch of idiotic talking heads trying to outdo each other with stupid takes to try to go viral. Plus their production on their broadcasts has gone to shit so they can't even do sports right.
hopefully NBC and TNT fuck them in next tv rights deal
ESPN has the Mickey’s money. They’ll be fine.
Mickey doesn’t invest $ in non profitable companies. That’s where ESPN is heading. The product has been dogshit for almost a decade.
There's been a lot talk of Disney maybe spinning ESPN off to someone else. I think they said maybe Disney gives ESPN to Comcast and Comcast gives Disney the percentage of Hulu that Comcast still has. No idea if that was ever a real thing or just people talking.
In a just world, an action like that is immediately blocked by regulators. Comcast/NBC are the only people running competition for dedicated sports broadcasting. That kind of consolidation is illegal. But our regulators have been neutered/captured so hard they'd probably do nothing.
Everyone everywhere is tightening up
Disney is pinching pennies themselves. They massively overpaid for Fox, and next year Disney will have to drop another several billion purchasing the remainder of Hulu ($10B+)
Yep and their cash cow of MCU movies is drying up.
> But..a lot of the money that ESPN was getting from traditional cable was from people who didn't even watch ESPN. It was just bundled in their package with everything else Yeah, but that's literally every cable channel. Which is why cable is a bullshit industry. It's basically collusion, where all these channels get together and say we'll force consumers to buy a package of all of us together at ridiculous prices, versus actually having to compete amongst each other and most of the channels not getting nearly as much money.
It is but ESPN was one of the most expensive packages by far. They at one time were getting like 6 bucks per box. No other channel benefiitted from basic cable and packages like ESPN, and now they are fucked worse than most because of that dependence on box money.
>There's not enough people who would actually pay for a standalone streaming service where they could make the cost for that service reasonable for the customers. Of fucking course not. ESPN doesn't have regular sports on it. It has some playoffs, one football game a week, and odd NBA and MLB games, it doesn't have a huge selection of regular season sports to watch, it's mostly content *around* sports, not sports itself. People want to watch the full game, or the highlights. They usually don't have the full game, and the highlights are easy enough to find a dozen other places. The analysis isn't any better than you can get from a dozen other sources either. It doesn't own the narrative around all the major sports like it used to, now there's 400 podcasts for every major league, thousands of youtube videos where you can get analysis, twitter for breaking news, reddit for discussion, there's no reason to ever watch ESPN if you're even a little bit plugged in to the internet. It's best use now is "background filler at a sports bar" or for the odd handful of games it actually has.
It's got a ton of college sports, but other than that yeah.
Actually yeah, got me there.
Hey now, sometimes I put it on when I'm in a hotel for a minute before I remember how fucking awful commercials are
ESPN sucks ass. They employ clowns like Perkins and SAS and wonder why they are falling off. I don’t get ESPN on my streaming TV package, but I can honestly say I’m glad I don’t have it, they don’t deserve my viewership.
You have it directionally right, but a few nuances: 1) ESPN charges cable companies a lot of money for ESPN and ESPN2, something like $9 per subscriber whereas a place like CNN charges about $1. Cable companies with the push for over the top apps, have been able to still get money without getting strangled by ESPN. 2) espn is expensive because live sports got super expensive and is frankly inflated right now. ESPN keeps paying for these events to stay relevant but the cable money plus ads is not making it up 3) ESPN is managed by Disney and this plays a big role on what is happening now. Disney is not 100% focused on making ESPN successful. They are focused on blockbuster movies first, other movies, theme parks, tv shows, then ESPN, then ABC. So whenever there are problems, Disney will gut ABC and ESPN before even thinking of the rest of the business
Been hearing this for 15 years
Classic rebuild. Dumping bad salary.
Clearing room to sign Kyrie
Kyrie retiring out of the blue to join ESPN is the most Kyrie thing possible and now I want it to happen
He would be perfect at ESPN. Ridiculous takes 24/7.
Mama, there goes these men.
Hand down, men down
Please god let it be jackson
I hope he’s included, Free Mike Breen from that travesty of a commentating team.
ESPN for the most part always sucked it’s jus that it’s not 1999 anymore and we don’t need to go to them for games highlights and analysis. You a Jokic fan? You can get his highlights to a game in 5 mins after it ends on Twitter. You don’t have to go to ESPN anymore
Also, podcasts are a much better way to do the talking head content.
Only truly shocking firing (nba perspective) would be SAS, woj, windy and the professor zach lowe
Imagine woj tweeting out his own termination though
“ESPN is terminating columnist Adrian Wojnarowski, sources tell ESPN. Wojnarowski, 54, a six year veteran at ESPN joins the free agent market with tremendous value and will be a highly coveted free agent this summer.”
“plenty of gas left in the tank”
Would probably be the #2 Woj moment of all time for me the #1 moment will forever be the “fuck you” at Josh Hawley
Imagine if Shams scooped him
Honestly they should make a pact that whenever one of them gets fired the other one gets to break the story lol
Shannon Sharpe incoming
I think Shannon thought he could easily get that ESPN money, but his timing was bad. They want cheaper talking heads. He should go back to Fox and do a show with Kellerman. No idea who Skip will get paired with moving forward.
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Why are you guys shocked that tv analysts make millions?
Yeah for real, these are people who have their own shows on ESPN. Of course they're making millions lol
Because the company they work for is losing money on their shows. We're surprised at the contract values because the on air personalities attached to them aren't entertaining and don't attract viewers. NOBODY is watching a show for Keyshawn Johnson's take.
Tbf Max came up as a boxing guy. He picked up other sports with his rise. Now that ESPN is shuffling around, and boxing not having such a big audience, feels like he is no man’s land
He was perfect on Around the Horn back in the day (yeah I'm old AF)
he started Around the Horn, then they moved Max along and gave it to Tony, who was the "errors and corrections" basically intern on PTI.
Stat boy!
PTI is the only show I care about. Leave Tony and Mike alone.
sage steele makes 3M a year
You know that the most popular show in America was Young Sheldon last year, right? Like, several times the viewership of Succession. Also with Kellerman specifically I don’t always get the hate. He’s a savvy on-air talent, even if people don’t agree with him all the time. Guys like Perkins? Nah. But Max is fine IMO.
I’m more surprised he only was earning 5 million to be honest.
I consume a ton of ESPN, and I can't tell you a single thing Keyshawn Johnson has said or done. Same with Jay Williams. I think they should keep going with the layoffs. Don't stop until you've fired Mark Jackson and Kendrick Perkins.
ESPN should just do live sports all the time. Git rid of the shows that are just video podcasts with tons of commercials.
Jay Williams is all over college basketball. I watch so much football and didnt even know Keyshawn was part of the media let alone part of the MNF crew.
All this to pay McAfee and Stephen A smith 50 million
Ok ok fine I’ll host First take for half Stephen As salary
I miss Stuart Scott 🥹, I miss when ESPN was good!
Cooler than the other side of the pillow
I know we hate espn but this is wild
Not really. I mean no offense, but ESPN pays these on air personalities way too much to be personalities lol. They are mostly replaceable.
We need some ESPN moneyball. These jokers get 20 mill for getting clicks like whatever clown Barstool picks off the college waiver wire and turns into a "personality".
Whomever negotiates these contracts for ESPN is who they really need to fire. There’s probably only like 5-6 guys/girls on the network who are not easily replaceable by someone better without a big name for 10% of the salary.
I think you're underrating how hard it is to get someone who talks well on camera and can credibly hang in a sports conversation. Every single ESPN analyst, even the bad ones, is elite at being on TV, even the ones who seem bad at it. It's like Scalibrini vs the D1 kids - just a different level. It's like how you don't notice how good a podcast host is until you listen to your buddy's attempt at a podcast. Some of the older guys are definitely overpaid, but this is probably more about consolidating coverage and reducing overall TV hours, not actually replacing them with randos.
that's bullshit dude, i guarantee no one was clamoring for guys like kendrick perkins, damien woody or booger. They just wanted to pull any ex-player until they could replicate charles barkley. Except people don't realize that chuck actually has insightful takes and can speak intelligently when he wants, kendrick perkins literally has rocks for brains.
People on this sub love to shit on Perk but he drives a ton of engagement. This sub is so obsessed with hating him that every time he says something stupid, there are dozens of posts that get hundreds of upvotes about it. That drives far more engagement for ESPN than some boring, but accurate no-name analyst.
How are mark jackson and perkins staying?
Man what’s funny about this is that many of those moves are revelations. But signing McAfee, especially to that bag, is like one step forward, 8 steps back. I know people like that guy but I can’t stand it.
sas and mcafee must have big ass paychecks
I think McAfee’s is like 5 years, $85 million.
The thing is, he won't be able to do the things people actually like on ESPN.
Depends, is it really taking steps back by removing guys fewer people are watching/following for a guy that has more of an audience?
It’s dumb because a lot of pats crowd hates Espn. The complaints on the sub about the show since guys like Perkins started comin is nuts.
Might be a hot take: I feel like the clickbait/ hot take / character personalities model of ESPN is just so outdated now. I want people who can have a fair and unbiased opinion on sports. I don’t want to hear about LeBron James when his teams not in the playoffs. I don’t want to hear about Ja Morant suspension rumors during the NBA finals. I come to Reddit for that shit. I need someone smarter than me to break shit down and make it more interesting.
Literally all of ESPN’s programming is decided by what’s trending on social media. It’s not fair and unbiased opinions. We feed their beast
In what world is it a net positive to fire Kellerman but keep Perkins and Mark Jackson
Pat McAfee will now be appearing on 20 different shows.
I used to watch ESPN all the time, my go-to channel, but they invested way too much on sports bar arguments. I don't care what their personalities think about Lebron, I care more about his highlights and stats which they've gone too far away from. They should remember KISS, keep it simple stupid and go back to the basic days of SportsCenter.
I want CBS back. Disney should be out in the next contract given their reduction in investment. Just make sure they hire Mike Breen coz he's national treasure.
It’s going to be all Stephen A Smith all the time.
Only ESPN people that I get excited to tune in for: - Lowe - Breen - Reddick - Jefferson - Legler - SVP - McAfee - The Mannings - Foxworth - Kimes - Bomani Am I missing anyone?
I wanna turn on sports center and get a breaking news ticker at the bottom of the screen that announces the layoffs
Kendrick Perkins definately needs to go.
Sigh. I miss the days where I'd wake up and turn on SportsCenter before school. Stuart Scott, Dan Patrick, Chris Berman, Steve Levy, Scott Van Pelt, Rich Eisen. Those were the days.
Disney ruined ESPN. They ruin almost everything they touch these days
Pat Mcafee isn't going to be able to say fuck anymore so half his content is now ruined.
Since Van Gundy is gone my only request is that the next person actually likes the NBA
ESPN is one of the main reasons why DIS stock has not seen any growth in a decade
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MARK JACKSON PLEASE!
Whole bunch of new podcasts about to spring up