ESPN Apocalypse is today

lol@ people here thinking ESPN’s political lunacy hasn’t impacted viewers beyond larger trends of cord cutting

ESPNW posted a series of five poems on “the new feminism” in the “Voices” section of its website on Tuesday. One of them, which led off the series, was dedicated to a 1970s cop-killer.

Lol at “people” who consider leaning left lunacy.

Don’t, they’ll be triggered.

lol at you thinking the abject lunacy I posted has anything to do with leaning left.

[quote=“olaf, post:131, topic:129526, full:true”]
They are losing viewers. It’s not up for debate. They are mostly losing viewers because of cord cutters. But if you think that their politics are not also playing a part in losing viewers, I don’t know what to tell you.[/quote]

Anything’s possible, of course. Your (and the conservative media you’re parroting) particular narrative wish is certainly plausible. But so are many other narratives, since the crucial thing we lack is evidence either way.

I’ll give you this: you give off the appearance of desperately wanting your narrative to be true.

Bloomberg getting in on this hot sweet action.

ESPN is the prime reason I cut out cable nearly 8 or 9 years ago. I was tired of subsidizing $5+ a month when channels I wanted, like Science Channel, or National Geographic were getting, sometimes as low as .10 cents a month and there was no bundle available to dump ESPN for my preferred viewing.

So I think ESPN was over-represented for years because it was forced on everyone, and now that we have a choice they are having to deal with it. Just like shopping channels, religious channels and 50 channels of other of total crap was paid out in cable subscriptions whether based on need or not. I’m not saying ESPN is bad at all, just that we never had a tv viewing choice unless people went over the air only (which is not good in too many places like my own where I can get a whopping 1 channel over the air thanks to neighborhood location and trees). I found it disgraceful that I had to pay $60+ a year so others could watch sports. It’s even worse now:

If we look at sports networks available in more than 50% of cable and satellite TV homes, $9.06 of each monthly bill goes to ESPN’s top four networks (ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, SEC Network), whether the customer watches those networks or not.

http://www.businessinsider.com/cable-satellite-tv-sub-fees-espn-networks-2017-3

[quote=“charmtrap, post:145, topic:129526, full:true”]

Anything is possible? How can I argue with that? Again, if you think ESPN turning hard left when their demo leans right is a smart business decision and is not impacting their bottom line…well, anything is possible!

The problem there is that supports are merit based. :)

LOL, OK. Just keep saying the same stupid, unproven things you’ve made up in your head over and over.

ESPN has turned left, period. I believe it to be a conscious decision, that they made for business reasons.

Some viewers are more valuable than others.

That said, it might bite them hard if cable TV collapses like I predict it will in the next 10 years or so. ESPN will survive, but in a diminished role, and pro sports is going to take a huge hit as well (particularly college)

I would still LOVE to see one piece of data supporting the contentions of olaf, desslock and others. Just one piece of hard data that supports this contention.

And, to be clear, I’m not asking in a pejorative fashion. I’d love to see this borne out, I really would.

I mean, if we’re just doing anecdotal evidence, the “hard left turn” of ESPN is an anecdote easily countered by another anecdote: “Tim Tebow coverage, 24/7.”

“Any time” is quite different to the amount of time they do give her. And I don’t blame ESPN for that as much as the way modern media over does almost any story now. But Jenner was a has been, a great athlete but someone the current generation wouldn’t even know had she not come out. And I don’t think coming out should be news for days, weeks, months or even years.

And to be clear, I don’t think any ESPN slant is the reason for their problems, I think times have changed since ESPN began and they have not been able to change with it. People no longer need televised sports networks for informational purposes, they watch the games, but they can get everything else ESPN offers in other places in real time.

Much like the modern newspaper sports page, which really only offers local sports or sports writers because their stats and game info is so dated by the time it reaches the reader.

Other than the NBA (I am not sure of NFL stats regarding race) that is probably not true, at least regarding blacks. MLB is something like 9% black. I have no idea about soccer but hockey is mostly white.

I couldn’t even begin to guess the political persuasion of most latino athletes.

I think the Tebow coverage is like the Jenner coverage though. It was a name they wouldn’t leave alone. Also, you have to admit, they made fun of Tebow a great deal as well.

I’d agree that the coverage she’s gotten is a lot, but I’m talking about people that I’ve seen complaining about literally any time at all being spent on Jenner. To those people even one minute of her story was political grandstanding and not worthy of being grouped in with their sports news. I don’t think there’s any way to please those folks without going back to the days of good ol’ boys in the announcers’ booth making off-color jokes.

Do you think if Jenner wasn’t somehow already in the culture (via the Kardashian’s) her celebrity as a Olympian 30+ years ago would have received this much press?

Do you think if some other athlete from the 70-80’s came out they would get the never ending press treatment Jenner has received?

The counter argument is of course that Jenner supported Trump, and so would seem an embarrassment to any left leaning source.

The NFL is about 70% black… not too much different than the NBA (75%).
MLB is 60-65% non-Hispanic white, and the remainder minority (with Hispanics being the largest portion).

Those three (along with the college versions of each) probably account for, what, 80% of ESPN’s coverage between them? Maybe more (certainly in the future, since they just gutted their hockey and soccer teams)? Maybe if we count up every NASCAR driver and PBA bowler that gets on TV on a Sunday afternoon, it might be close to an even split, but pro-rated by attention they’re certainly a network that predominantly covers minority athletes.

I have no idea on either question. Honestly, I’m hard-pressed to think of anything remotely similar to the Caitlyn Jenner story except maybe when Rock Hudson died of AIDS and his homosexuality was publicly confirmed after decades of cover-up and denial. For a lot of people, the Hudson story was shocking and newsworthy precisely because he was thought to be such a “man’s man” and an icon of 1960’s movie star status.

I daresay Jenner’s story would’ve been a similarly big shock to a lot of people that grew up with an atheltic and “manly” image of Bruce on the Wheaties box regardless of his Kardashian notoriety. I admit that the large amount of coverage she got from all outlets was amplified due to her “reality star” status, but I have no idea to what extent that was inflated beyond the titillating details of the story on its own.

I think Jenner was a bigger surprise as many (judging from my parents reaction and the media at the time) knew Hudson was gay.