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.