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ESPN Firing 100 People Today

I'd be ok if they got rid of everyone associated with the show that's on at 4:30. Those people seem like they're not even interested to be on TV.
 
TheReff said:
Please remove whoever made Caitlyn/Bruce Jenner the most courageous person in 2015! Whoever decided to give "it" the Arthur Ashe Courage Award on national TV should be fired. We have people losing limbs every day fighting for our freedoms far more courageous than "it" and he won't even go all the way and cut off the family jewels to make it complete. What a joke.
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Well this is a strong candidate for worst post of the year
 
Really sucks for the employees, hate to see that.

Obviously BKFs post is politically backed, but the tweet below really isn't wrong. ESPN has been heading down this path now for quite a few years. It's the direction they chose and these are the results.

DavidF 2 hours ago
news flash for the media- When you merge politics with sports/entertainment/news or anything else, you #$%$ off half of your audience. And eventually lay off half your employees.
 
It's mystifying to me that ESPN has gone away from "hard news" in the hard news hour of 6pm. You have a 2nd and 3rd network for the talking head pontificating / bloviating BS that keeps driving viewers away. Add to it that their idea of a highlight package consists of a big dunk, a deep three and maybe an end-of-game play if it's a close game and its no wonder the hard-core sports fans keep migrating elsewhere. And they seem convinced it's better to focus on the biggest markets with a narrower focus on certain teams rather than a broader look at all the major sports. Indeed, the fact that they even have hockey reporters is a joke when you have to drill down into a banner menu to even find a link to the NHL. Why can't they have a hard news / highlight show at 6pm and 11pm FOLLOWED by the big headline gossip stuff where by non-athlete reporters and on-air talent like Stephen Smith and condescending Max Kellerman bloviate to their heart's content?

Just seems like they don't really know how to create a lineup of shows that works and keep fooling themselves into elevating the position of the "talk show" type nonsense that they think we want to watch in lieu of highlights and news. Maybe I'm just too old school, but MLB, NFL and NHL network all seem to be able to stay on point and give me visual content that I enjoy rather than annoy me with aural blathering of a wet-behind-the-ear, trying-too-hard maroon of an anchor who happens to have a degree from Syracuse broadcasting / journalism school. No offense to Syracuse. ;-)
 
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Except, of course, that most people didn't/don't stop watching ESPN because of any (real or perceived) political bias.

If you want to point out a merger of two areas that caused a decline in ESPN's viewership, it's far more likely that the sports/entertainment merger decreased viewership than any political/sports merger.

Also Jenner has had surgery so that talking point can be retired in lieu of some other crass, insensitive barb that I'm sure will also get run into the ground by old white dudes.
 
The market changed, that's all this is. It's not politics, or Bruce Jenner. It's that we don't need to get this information from ESPN like we used to, combined with expanding too far. We don't really need one 24-hour sports network, so five of them was doomed. The product got incredibly watered down, the talent got watered down, and competition grew tremendously with everything online now, rather than waiting until sportscenter comes on to see some cool highlights.
 
I kind of understand why they're moving away from real news as most people get news instantaneously through their phones, but why do they have to keep and promote their most annoying people.

I know the answer, polarization and sensationalism sell, because this country is made up of NBA and NFL #hottake loving rubes, but GD if it doesn't make me hope that we start a nuclear war with North Korea and just end it all.
 
it's not even that much about how we consume sports anymore. ESPN was the single greatest beneficiary of the the cable bundling platform, which is dying.
 
As someone who watched ESPN every morning before elementary, middle and high school, all the way through college, it sucks to see how watered down the "analysis" has become. I pretty much entirely stopped watching it once Stuart Scott passed away. Unrelated, but had the chance the meet Stuart and, with him being such a big part of my childhood, his loss hit me hard!

Hopefully this will be a positive move for ESPN and it can get back to it's glory years.
 
It was indeed very brave for Bruce Jenner to have surgery and become Caitlyn. I have nothing against that, but what relevance does that have to the sports world? A lot of younger folks who aren't into sports probably don't even realize he was an all-world, gold-winning decathlete in the late 60's and 70's. Shit the decathlon is hardly even shown during the Olympics when it is broadcast. They are usually too busy shoving sandy butts in our faces cuz they think 2-person volleyball is particularly compelling or interesting.

It's not just ESPN really. And as Numbers pointed out just above me, it's the ill-conceived notion that you need to highlight the entertainment factor of athletes for the content to seem interesting. No, there are still a lot of armchair QB's and weekend warriors out there who are actually entertained by and intrigued by actual sporting achievement, not by Bruce's decision to invert his coin purse into a vagine. I can watch TMZ for that, or E:60 I suppose. At least in that case, I know what I'm getting into.
 
The hits are going to hurt ESPN.com more than the on-air product. Most of their columnists are getting axed...and the on-air portion of these folks work we really won't notice. These are the people that do liveshots shot with an IPOD for the mid-day ESPNNews shows.

Not defending the cuts, and now I will start to sample other .com sources for sports news.
 
Screamindemon3 said:
Really sucks for the employees, hate to see that.

Obviously BKFs post is politically backed, but the tweet below really isn't wrong. ESPN has been heading down this path now for quite a few years. It's the direction they chose and these are the results.

DavidF 2 hours ago
news flash for the media- When you merge politics with sports/entertainment/news or anything else, you #$%$ off half of your audience. And eventually lay off half your employees.
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You have any evidence for this besides some random dude's Tweet?
 
Deacsfan27 said:
In 15 posts we have people cheering other people getting fired, and an old man talking about ESPN's ratings being reduced because of their liberal views.

Welcome to the internet.
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Did you ever read a good Dana O'Neil article?
 
I wonder how much time these people complaining about "liberal bias" spend on hardcore right-wing media
 
Pilchard said:
That factor hasn't been mentioned as much, but the development of each league's own network has played a big role in ESPN's diminished presence in sports. If you love Football, Baseball, Basketball, Hockey, Tennis, Golf, Soccer, Motor Sports, there are networks now solely dedicated to whatever sport you prefer that can get to the granular detail that ESPN can't. Same with the development or the SEC and Big 10 Networks. ESPN is no longer the source for info about any particular sport. By cutting the reporters that cover those sports, ESPN is essentially conceding that they can't compete with the single sport centric networks.
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It reminds me of MTV (do they even show videos anymore?) and how they changed dramatically from what their original programming was. In 10 years we'll be looking back saying "Remember when ESPN showed sports?"
 
It seems like the people they're getting rid of is an indicator of going more in the direction of showing live sports content, rather than supporting content?

Of course sports rights are super expensive and other entities aren't necessarily run like a business to the degree that Disney is
 
are you guys saying ESPN doesn't already show a ton of live sports content? they spend $7bn a year on sports rights.

FS1 has a bunch of shows that makes fun of millennials and snowflakes with Jason Whitlock and Clay Travis and Teletubbies beats them in the ratings. Is it because of their conservative bias?

ESPN's problem isn't ratings. It's subscribers.
 
I remember ESPN.
Didn't it used to be a popular sports channel?
 
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