OT: Chris Berman Leaving E$ECPN?

[Miamicane]

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/looks-another-one-espns-most-154837631.html

Yes, from our clueless "friends" at Yahoo.

You have to love this line:

"But Berman's history as a highlights personality would not seem to fit with the direction of most sports networks as they move more toward debate and commentary."

Of course they are moving to the "Embrace Debate" model, because it is CHEAP!! E$ECPN shot itself in the foot by overpaying for rights fees...fees they pay to their own competition! Berman does the NFL Draft, but so does NFL Network! Heck NFL Network's .com site covers College Football too. Couple that with rampant cord cutting (consumers have figured out E$ECPN is the costly channel and if they don't like sports, away the cord goes), the relative staleness of what they overpaid for recently (21st Century NASCAR, the soft fix NBA, MLB, Longhorn Network) and you have a recipe that blows holes in your business model. Bristol is hemoraging cash and getting rid of Berman doesn't help much in keeping The Mouse from ordering more firings at the suit level.

Eventually, E$ECPN may need to bring George Grande back just to talk, Stephen A. and Skip style, to about the same number of viewers in 1979.

The cord cutting piece is overblown. They are still the #1 cable net with a bullet in the ad demo and with overall viewers, and they are going to keep seeing increased sub fees because they are "must carry". Definitely a little bit of turbulence, but that is secular. ESPN's bigger problem is failing to keep up with changing consumer behavior. They keep plunging money into trying to return the network to its mid-90s prime by revamping Sportscenter, a format which is now irrelevant.

The sports rights are expensive but actually the only thing keeping them as a "must have" channel so they have to keep paying for them, although I agree, they inlfated the prices and are now reaping the whirlwind.

They are smart to purge some of this overpriced talent like Berman who are really just remnants of the past. They ****ed up when they got rid of Simmons...love him or hate him, the guy is a draw for millenials (aka the cord cutters everyone is panicky about), and HBO recognized that immediately. It's a microcosm of where ESPN's leadership team is...stuck in the past, when the brand was big enough to self sustain.

Just my two cents, obviously. I love talking about this ****, I work in TV Research in LA and this is what I eat, sleep and breathe.

Interesting. Do you think "cord cutting" is a legitimate threat to SEC Network? To Longhorn Network? With cord cutting, how do the viewers get their content?

Mobile content, video clips, etc.

 

[Jeeperaf]

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/looks-another-one-espns-most-154837631.html

Yes, from our clueless "friends" at Yahoo.

You have to love this line:

"But Berman's history as a highlights personality would not seem to fit with the direction of most sports networks as they move more toward debate and commentary."

Of course they are moving to the "Embrace Debate" model, because it is CHEAP!! E$ECPN shot itself in the foot by overpaying for rights fees...fees they pay to their own competition! Berman does the NFL Draft, but so does NFL Network! Heck NFL Network's .com site covers College Football too. Couple that with rampant cord cutting (consumers have figured out E$ECPN is the costly channel and if they don't like sports, away the cord goes), the relative staleness of what they overpaid for recently (21st Century NASCAR, the soft fix NBA, MLB, Longhorn Network) and you have a recipe that blows holes in your business model. Bristol is hemoraging cash and getting rid of Berman doesn't help much in keeping The Mouse from ordering more firings at the suit level.

Eventually, E$ECPN may need to bring George Grande back just to talk, Stephen A. and Skip style, to about the same number of viewers in 1979.

The cord cutting piece is overblown. They are still the #1 cable net with a bullet in the ad demo and with overall viewers, and they are going to keep seeing increased sub fees because they are "must carry". Definitely a little bit of turbulence, but that is secular. ESPN's bigger problem is failing to keep up with changing consumer behavior. They keep plunging money into trying to return the network to its mid-90s prime by revamping Sportscenter, a format which is now irrelevant.

The sports rights are expensive but actually the only thing keeping them as a "must have" channel so they have to keep paying for them, although I agree, they inlfated the prices and are now reaping the whirlwind.

They are smart to purge some of this overpriced talent like Berman who are really just remnants of the past. They ****ed up when they got rid of Simmons...love him or hate him, the guy is a draw for millenials (aka the cord cutters everyone is panicky about), and HBO recognized that immediately. It's a microcosm of where ESPN's leadership team is...stuck in the past, when the brand was big enough to self sustain.

Just my two cents, obviously. I love talking about this ****, I work in TV Research in LA and this is what I eat, sleep and breathe.

Interesting. Do you think "cord cutting" is a legitimate threat to SEC Network? To Longhorn Network? With cord cutting, how do the viewers get their content?

Mobile content, video clips, etc.

In your industry, are you seeing a trend from viewers where they are satisfied with "snippets" of the action vs seeing the entire game unfold? I s guess that makes sense for the twitter generation of ADHD attention spans.

Is watching the whole game going to become nostalgic?

 

[Miamicane]

https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/looks-another-one-espns-most-154837631.html

Yes, from our clueless "friends" at Yahoo.

You have to love this line:

"But Berman's history as a highlights personality would not seem to fit with the direction of most sports networks as they move more toward debate and commentary."

Of course they are moving to the "Embrace Debate" model, because it is CHEAP!! E$ECPN shot itself in the foot by overpaying for rights fees...fees they pay to their own competition! Berman does the NFL Draft, but so does NFL Network! Heck NFL Network's .com site covers College Football too. Couple that with rampant cord cutting (consumers have figured out E$ECPN is the costly channel and if they don't like sports, away the cord goes), the relative staleness of what they overpaid for recently (21st Century NASCAR, the soft fix NBA, MLB, Longhorn Network) and you have a recipe that blows holes in your business model. Bristol is hemoraging cash and getting rid of Berman doesn't help much in keeping The Mouse from ordering more firings at the suit level.

Eventually, E$ECPN may need to bring George Grande back just to talk, Stephen A. and Skip style, to about the same number of viewers in 1979.

The cord cutting piece is overblown. They are still the #1 cable net with a bullet in the ad demo and with overall viewers, and they are going to keep seeing increased sub fees because they are "must carry". Definitely a little bit of turbulence, but that is secular. ESPN's bigger problem is failing to keep up with changing consumer behavior. They keep plunging money into trying to return the network to its mid-90s prime by revamping Sportscenter, a format which is now irrelevant.

The sports rights are expensive but actually the only thing keeping them as a "must have" channel so they have to keep paying for them, although I agree, they inlfated the prices and are now reaping the whirlwind.

They are smart to purge some of this overpriced talent like Berman who are really just remnants of the past. They ****ed up when they got rid of Simmons...love him or hate him, the guy is a draw for millenials (aka the cord cutters everyone is panicky about), and HBO recognized that immediately. It's a microcosm of where ESPN's leadership team is...stuck in the past, when the brand was big enough to self sustain.

Just my two cents, obviously. I love talking about this ****, I work in TV Research in LA and this is what I eat, sleep and breathe.

Interesting. Do you think "cord cutting" is a legitimate threat to SEC Network? To Longhorn Network? With cord cutting, how do the viewers get their content?

Mobile content, video clips, etc.

In your industry, are you seeing a trend from viewers where they are satisfied with "snippets" of the action vs seeing the entire game unfold? I s guess that makes sense for the twitter generation of ADHD attention spans.

Is watching the whole game going to become nostalgic?

I wouldn't say watching an entire sports game is going extinct anytime soon. But watching a "highlight show" like sportscenter is becoming less popular because everyone's already seen the must see highlights on Twitter and other social media sites (even the ESPN app which is canabalizing itself in a way). Ultimately this trend has forced espn to rethink the way they handle sports - in turn we have more debates and attention grabbing hot takes. Even SVP is bringing sportscenter into a more conversational/analysis style show as opposed to just showing highlights like the sportscenter of the old days.

Edit: didn't realize I jacked that other guys post. I too work in this industry and it's fascinating to see where espn will end up in the next decade or so. Bill Simmons said something on his podcast a few weeks back that I found quite interesting: ESPN is a tech company that doesn't know it yet.