ESPN's Black Wednesday

[GSG]

Brief But Revealing Conversations With People Who Emailed Me To Say ESPN Is Failing Because It's Liberal
ESPN is hemorrhaging money and laying off employees. This is because it is having trouble paying billions of dollars in rights fees while also losing millions of subscribers to cord-cutting. People cancel their cable subscriptions because advances in technology have allowed them to consume all the TV, movies, and sports they want without paying for cable, but a lot of morons out there want you to believe that people are cutting the cord because they have been alienated by ESPN’s supposedly liberal politics. Some of those morons emailed me.

 

[The Dude]

Mark May is outta there.

Like all the layoffs, I hope he lands on his feet somewhere worthy of his experience. I personally disliked his style and didn't enjoy watching him, but still tough to see one of college football staples let go.

I hope he lands on his feet too. Just not in such a way that I ever have to see him on television again.

 

[HuskermanMike]

Darn, it will be strange to not see some of these people on ESPN. It will also be weird to see them with another network, especially the anchors. I wish nothing but the best to the employees that were fired.

 

[knapplc]

Mark May is ESPN's FLU.

 

[Scratchtown]

How many of these guys find their way over to FS1?

 

[commando]

Brief But Revealing Conversations With People Who Emailed Me To Say ESPN Is Failing Because It's Liberal

ESPN is hemorrhaging money and laying off employees. This is because it is having trouble paying billions of dollars in rights fees while also losing millions of subscribers to cord-cutting. People cancel their cable subscriptions because advances in technology have allowed them to consume all the TV, movies, and sports they want without paying for cable, but a lot of morons out there want you to believe that people are cutting the cord because they have been alienated by ESPN’s supposedly liberal politics. Some of those morons emailed me.

holy chit.....those are some extreme far right nut jobs. i am amazed that they managed to find their way out of the birth canal.

 

[Swiv3D]

https://thefederalist.com/2017/04/26/the-real-story-behind-espns-wednesday-massacre/

 

[Making Chimichangas]

I, like many of you, used to love ESPN.

But somewhere along the line, I cannot pin-point where exactly, I lost interest.

Maybe I lost interest when ESPN became nothing more than loud-mouthed opinion and fact-less absurdity.

Maybe I lost interest when "on-air personality" became more important to the network than actual reporting.

Maybe I lost interest when ESPN became so sycophantic and disgustingly pro-SEC--to the detriment of the rest of college football.

When ever it was, the "polical leanings" of ESPN had nothing to do with my lost interest in the network.

 

[HuskermanMike]

I think Stephen A kept his job because his show gets a lot of high ratings. It's interesting to watch when I have time and they seem to bring in some big name guests from time to time. Some people that lost their job were really good at what they did and it is not a good thing at all, but most of these people should be employed in a short amount of time.

 

[Fru]

I almost feel like I've outgrown ESPN, like it's MTV or something.

 

[knapplc]

https://thefederalist.com/2017/04/26/the-real-story-behind-espns-wednesday-massacre/

The "yard barkers" as this author calls them drove me away from ESPN long ago, so I had no idea they'd gone into politics. That's just asinine.

ESPN could be successful if they had a Headline News circa 1992 channel that just had sports highlights on a revolving 30- or 45-minute cycle. I used to love Headline News back in the 1990s. Quick, concise information in a decent, logical format. That would get sports fans watching again.

 

[ZRod]

https://thefederalist.com/2017/04/26/the-real-story-behind-espns-wednesday-massacre/

The "yard barkers" as this author calls them drove me away from ESPN long ago, so I had no idea they'd gone into politics. That's just asinine.ESPN could be successful if they had a Headline News circa 1992 channel that just had sports highlights on a revolving 30- or 45-minute cycle. I used to love Headline News back in the 1990s. Quick, concise information in a decent, logical format. That would get sports fans watching again.

It's called ESPN news.

I watched whatever the hell SC6 is ar a bar last night (some kind of sports center where they sit on a couch), they did an interview about the new Chuck Wepner movie, which was cool, but the last 30 minutes I saw were all about fashion at the Met Galla. Why the hell would a sports fan give a rip about that?

Also they called Chuck "The real life Rocky", which is lazy journalism and pissed me off. Chuck inspired the character Rocky, not the otherway around. That's an insult to the man's work.

 

[Mavric]

[No message]

 

[Landlord]

I was recently on tour with a band and got to hang out with Daniel Dopp who's a full-time podcast producer at ESPN, mostly as the lead guy for Adam Schefter's podcast. Had some really good conversation about this stuff mostly centered around the idea that a lot of the important cogs/influential people behind the scenes really want to push towards more relevant channels of entertainment (podcasts, streaming, etc.) but that the bureaucracy is insanely handcuffing being such a massive enterprise and being owned by Disney.

Also told me that the numbers behind decisions such as Jemele Hill and Michael Smith's 6pm Sportscenter actually make way more sense than most of us would imagine. Said the driving demographics for their flagship programs are urban minorities.

Also told me that they told Lindsay Czarniak to fly back up to Bristol, coming back from maternity leave, for the sole reason of telling her in person that she was being let go. Rough stuff.