The ESPN layoffs announced this past Wednesday sent shockwaves throughout the sports media business. It’s the industry news story of the year. It dominated national and international headlines for days because this development affects so many different facets and niches.
We listed eight truths this development taught us about the current state of the sports media business. Now we look at five major issues the network (and many of us content creators and consumers as well) must resolve. Tomorrow, we’ll detail five steps that we believe the company should take in the wake of the ESPN layoffs.
Let’s dive right in.
1. Serious Issues with Baseball
Major League Baseball just doesn’t play well with the internet- something I have been saying and writing for close to a decade now. Many others in the industry have lamented the same exact issue to me. Baseball doesn’t move the needle on the world wide web for them either.
Simply put, it’s the main reason you don’t see more MLB on The Sports Bank and why I don’t possess the same personal zeal and individual interest for the sport that I do for football, basketball and soccer. I’m not saying baseball doesn’t get page views, but it’s limited to a specific niche of websites that do it the best, most consistently, and with the greatest detail.
The supply of web sites providing baseball content far out-strips the demand, and baseball is very unique in that the high popularity the sport enjoys is not reflected at all by web traffic numbers. Page view numbers consistently fall far below what you’d expect given how many people love the sport, and that is something you only see in MLB.
You can be certain that ESPN sees that too, given how much they’ve gutted their baseball coverage. On one of our two visits to ESPN, we heard Bristol executives say that numbers show only about eight or nine MLB teams get good ratings.
That essentially mirrors what I’ve been saying about page views.
You must adjust to diminished demand by reducing your amount of production. ESPN seems to be going in that direction; given how they are kiboshing Baseball Tonight as we know it.
2. NASCAR Divestment a Smart Move; More Divesting is Needed
ESPN was wise to discontinue broadcasting NASCAR, as it’s a sport that’s certainly not increasing in popularity. This was true even before Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s retirement announcement, which will only further darken the stock car racing league’s outlook.
Given how tiny the market is for women’s sports, I can’t imagine ESPN W will persist for too much longer. Actually, I’m not sure there was ever enough demand to even create the network in the first place.
Also, I get why there’s an ESPN, ESPNU, ESPN 2, ESPN News….we’re dangerously close to a real life ESPN 8 The Ocho. These networks exist for when you have sports overlap season and you need multiple networks to broadcast all of the games going on at the exact same time.
What do you do the rest of the year though?
What about the summer lull?
I don’t pretend to know the answers here but I do know the ESPN layoffs drove home this truth- way too many ESPN channels as Bristol bloated beyond basic essentials. There will be further tightening of the belt.
3. Serious Issues with Hockey
Everything we just said about baseball…times a thousand. While the ESPN layoffs hit baseball especially hard, in hockey it was nothing short of scorched earth. Like baseball, hockey has a very difficult time generating eyeballs on the web. There is a market there though, and I would fully expect the ESPN layoffs to maybe prelude the self-ascribed world wide leader possibly outsourcing hockey coverage to NHL Network; much like they’re doing for baseball to MLB Network.
Also, if you thought the hockey fan zealot’s “please like my sport/consider it one of the major sports” chip-on-the-shoulder was bad now…it’s only going to get much much worse now.
4. Political, Sociological and Sociopolitical Questions
Did what some perceive to be a liberal bias turn ESPN viewers away? Sure. Were conservatives, moderates and apolitical types turned off by the editorial direction of ESPN enough to have it really make a dent? Maybe, or maybe not? Is ESPN’s supposed left wing bias the reason people canceled their cable subscriptions?
HAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAH
No.
Is it the primary reason that ESPN is currently in dire need of cost-cutting?
If you honestly believe that ridiculous line of reasoning, then you should just start wearing your tin foil hat right now.
https://twitter.com/PaulMBanks/status/859111377222463494
The idiots espousing this idea seem to forget about the following:
Sage Steele and her Stacy Dash light political bent, Curt Schilling and his too extremist for FOX News Channel but in the wheelhouse of Breitbart style views, incessant free promotion of paid-for-patriotism and the long military-industrial complex infomercial that is the month of November’s programming.
While the ESPN layoffs convey a need to stop their audience from shrinking, the real issue here is economics, not politics.
5. Television is Going Down a Similar Path of Newspapers
The golden age of television is long, long over and it’s never coming back. TV is feeling what newspapers did about 10-15 years ago. Yes, TV people still are the jocks, cheerleaders and “the cool table” of the media industry. Everyone else constitutes the band nerds and chess club of the media world, but that doesn’t mean TV talent are automatically given the front of the line and the best seat in the house anymore.
Time to realize that and adapt.
What is the Mothership to do moving forward? We’ll have a column of five general tips and ideas in this space tomorrow.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net and TheBank.News, partnered with FOX Sports Engage Network. and News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, currently contributes to WGN CLTV and KOZN.
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