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ESPN's new social media policy


Coach1K

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4 hours ago, Coach1K said:

In light of Jemele Hill and the social issues that have been Tweeted ESPN decided it was time for a new policy. 

Ya think, ESPN?  It matters not which side of the political divide you fall on, if you engage in partisan political commentary and attack one of the two major parties in this country, you WILL alienate at least close to half of the population.  Not a real recipe for success as a sports channel since last I knew, members of both major political parties enjoyed sports.  Just a DUMB decision made by management to allow employees to publicly drift into partisan politics. Jemele Hill isn't the only employee to alienate a significant portion of the viewing audience. IU's own Sage Steele had her own moment of controversy where she angered members of the other end of the political spectrum.

ESPN used to be interesting to watch when they actually did sports.

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1 hour ago, milehiiu said:

And there in,  ESPN lost their focus.  And , because of that,  millions of subscribers. 

 

To be fair, ESPN is the primary reason cable companies have been hemorrhaging customers for the past three years or so...their issue is, and has been, their cost. Sports aren't as important as they've priced their service to deliver. This is coming from an employee of the parent company, also, a stockholder. 

Sure, the political thing doesn't help...but, its really just additional weight on an already sinking ship. 

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18 minutes ago, zerawkid said:

To be fair, ESPN is the primary reason cable companies have been hemorrhaging customers for the past three years or so...their issue is, and has been, their cost. Sports aren't as important as they've priced their service to deliver. This is coming from an employee of the parent company, also, a stockholder. 

Sure, the political thing doesn't help...but, its really just additional weight on an already sinking ship. 

Fair point, but I still have to wonder...had they not alienated a bunch of viewers by dipping into partisan politics, they likely wouldn't have lost so many viewers making their franchise more valuable to local cable companies.  I guess the question is, which came first...the untenable price hikes or the significant loss in viewership?

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6 hours ago, zerawkid said:

To be fair, ESPN is the primary reason cable companies have been hemorrhaging customers for the past three years or so...their issue is, and has been, their cost. Sports aren't as important as they've priced their service to deliver. This is coming from an employee of the parent company, also, a stockholder. 

Sure, the political thing doesn't help...but, its really just additional weight on an already sinking ship. 

Love ya.  I had forgotten about you and your wife.  Thanks for the reminder.  Nothing personal, in what I said. I hope you understand that.  You are much closer to this sinking ship than most of us here.  My best wishes go out to you, that you don't go down with the ship.  And that not only ESPN, but Disney can find a way out of the storm.

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Disney will be fine in the long term. Now is a good time to get in on Disney imo, I have been wondering when they will cut ESPN out of their lives for a couple years now. Several theme parks will open up by 2020, Marvel looks to have a strong movie year, etc. ESPN is too small to ruin Disney. But you never would have thought ESPN would ruin ESPN 10 years ago.

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7 hours ago, FKIM01 said:

Fair point, but I still have to wonder...had they not alienated a bunch of viewers by dipping into partisan politics, they likely wouldn't have lost so many viewers making their franchise more valuable to local cable companies.  I guess the question is, which came first...the untenable price hikes or the significant loss in viewership?

I think it's the former, I really do, although, admittedly not by a lot.

My timeline recollection goes a little something like this: Disney acquires Lucasfilm in 2012 when Disney stock was performing well. A short time later, end of first quarter 2013, CEO Bob Iger (Disney) had things humming pretty well: the parks were killing it, a little movie called Frozen had just done $1 billion, thankfully, because ESPN was starting to really drag revenue.

Two years later, and the numbers will bear this out, I'm almost certain, cable companies had seen subscriber-ship plummet...this is when "cordcutting" became a thing. On any given cable bill, ESPN's cut was anywhere from 25%-40% of what cable companies were collecting. We were anticipating the release of Star Wars: Force Awakens for a couple reasons, we wanted to see the movie really badly, and, we just KNEW our stock was close to splitting. At that point ESPN took a serious nosedive and essentially negated any significant gains we made in the box office and in the parks.

I think the people that tune in, generally, and in large numbers, don't care as much about the partisan ramblings of a couple rogue anchors/commentators as the folks who are trying to trim their monthly cable expenses. I might be wrong, and we likely don't have a way to have truly know, but I do know ESPN was in fiscal trouble long before the previous presidential administration was finished and before the current one began...no political commentary intended nor implied. 

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On 11/3/2017 at 6:45 AM, milehiiu said:

Love ya.  I had forgotten about you and your wife.  Thanks for the reminder.  Nothing personal, in what I said. I hope you understand that.  You are much closer to this sinking ship than most of us here.  My best wishes go out to you, that you don't go down with the ship.  And that not only ESPN, but Disney can find a way out of the storm.

Love you back, pal. Indeed, I love the tenor and quality of conversation here. It's nice to have a free exchange of thoughts with folks who are respectful and intelligent. 

Thankfully, we've embarked a new chapter. Disney, while not being *entirely* in our rearview (we still work part time/seasonally) is still a small part of our income. I've taken on work as a teacher, though I don't really love it. Studying for a real estate license now. 

I think Disney is more than capable of weathering this ESPN storm. Too much was invested in their continued involvement with cable subscriptions. So too, might it have been a case of sports being overvalued in our society.

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On 11/3/2017 at 1:57 PM, Bushmage said:

Disney will be fine in the long term. Now is a good time to get in on Disney imo, I have been wondering when they will cut ESPN out of their lives for a couple years now. Several theme parks will open up by 2020, Marvel looks to have a strong movie year, etc. ESPN is too small to ruin Disney. But you never would have thought ESPN would ruin ESPN 10 years ago.

Spot on across the board, Bush. I never saw ESPN's drag on Disney coming a decade back. But, I do think ESPN can be a valuable brand for Disney moving forward, they just gotta continue to pare it down, get it lean and mean, figure out a new way to market and sell it...the WatchESPN is functional and pretty great to use.

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1 hour ago, zerawkid said:

I think the people that tune in, generally, and in large numbers, don't care as much about the partisan ramblings of a couple rogue anchors/commentators as the folks who are trying to trim their monthly cable expenses. I might be wrong, and we likely don't have a way to have truly know, but I do know ESPN was in fiscal trouble long before the previous presidential administration was finished and before the current one began...no political commentary intended nor implied. 

The current mess in the NFL would seem to indicate that disgust trumps dollars. I'm amazed by the pictures of empty seats in stadiums knowing how much those people paid for tickets. For people to not go to a game after what they spent on the tickets says an awful lot to me.

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1 hour ago, Reacher said:

The current mess in the NFL would seem to indicate that disgust trumps dollars. I'm amazed by the pictures of empty seats in stadiums knowing how much those people paid for tickets. For people to not go to a game after what they spent on the tickets says an awful lot to me.

People can blame the protests for the empty seats but I don't buy it.  If it were supporters of the protests would be snatching up the tickets for cheap and going to the games. 

People are just tired of football especially going to the stadium. Better to stay home. Watch it in 4K follow your fantasy team while your at it and save 300 dollars. That's if you even watch the games. 

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What we're seeing is more of a generational shift in the "entertainment" industries.  I personally feel it has little to do with any "politics."  Most big sports fans aren't cutting ESPN because a few anchors on shows they largely don't watch don't agree with their personal politics; they're cutting it because they can't justify the cost anymore - or they're not cutting it at all.

Where the big "cutting" numbers come in is younger people who watch sports occasionally but not enough to justify paying $100+ per month to watch it or people who've decided to cut cable who didn't really watch ESPN to begin with anyway.

The quality of shows on Netflix, Amazon, etc. is just night and day better than really anything cable has to offer outside of maybe premium channels, which you can also watch and pay for a la carte online.

Zerawkid said "the WatchESPN is functional and pretty great to use" - I think that's spot on - ESPN's real problem is cord cutters.  Sports, especially professional sports, are not nearly as important to the younger generation and not nearly as tied into the identity of their host cities as they once were.  ESPN, at some point, is going to have to offer a la carte services online and cut out all the stupid, inane, "talk" shows and focus on just showing the games and Sportscenter - the way it used to be.

Also, though I'm sure ESPN's lawyers have thoroughly reviewed their policy, I'd be shocked to see it go unchallenged in court, right or wrong.

Something else to consider in the cord cutting is that wages haven't really gone up for a lot of people, but inflation persists, and the cable bills have become a much larger percentage of take-home pay than they used to be.

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I recently cut the cord.  Was paying 200 a month for fios tv/internet.  I quit watching ESPN a long time ago, except for NFL and IU bball.  Finally had enough of paying for 200 channels that I never watched.

BTW  - upgraded to 100/100 internet and purchased HULU live tv so I can still get ESPN and BIG network...ended up saving 75/month

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11 minutes ago, Brass Cannon said:

People can blame the protests for the empty seats but I don't buy it.  If it were supporters of the protests would be snatching up the tickets for cheap and going to the games. 

People are just tired of football especially going to the stadium. Better to stay home. Watch it in 4K follow your fantasy team while your at it and save 300 dollars. That's if you even watch the games. 

I agree because I feel that the product on the field the last few years has been bad.  There is just no excitement around the game anymore. With all the penalities being called and taking a lot of the hitting away it is just not hat entertaining anymore.

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I think another reason for the decrease viewership of sports is the oversaturation of sports on TV.  I am 47 years old and remember a time before cable that it was a privilege to get to watch a game live.  You had 4 channels and most of the sports you would see was IU and PU basketball on channel for in Indy. In the NFL you had 2 or 3 games on Sunday and the Monday night game and that was it. Today you have the Thursday night and Sunday night game as well.  Also with the Red Zone people tend to watch that channel because it takes less of your attention to watch that channel.  In the MLB you had one game a week on NBC for a national game and maybe got about 50 Reds game locally a year. It was the same way with the NBA where you had one game a week on CBS that aired nationally and then you had some Pacers games on locally.

I remember there was a time when you were lucky to see one or two IU football games on TV a year. Before ESPN and ESPN+ shown on channel 4 and the BTN you only had games on ABC and they did not show IU very often.  Of course you got to see all of the IU basketball games locally or on national TV.  Also nationally all you got for college basketball was one or two games a week on NBC that you could watch.

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As others have said, ESPN is floundering because they have a poor product.  Other than the particular games that they own, I don't bother watching.  Listening to their "panels" would be like nails on chalkboard.  You get more insight here, literally.  

With cord cutting going wild, there is no need for all this ESPN programming.  You don't need their hot takes or their highlights or their useless banter or low level analysis.

We need to get to an eventual situation where you can get the games directly from the maker and cut out the middleman (ESPN).  If someone really wants to watch Tedy Bruschi fawn over the Patriots or Ray Lewis blather on with Trey Wingo, you could purchase ESPN on your own.  But, the number of people who would want that would be minimal.  So, the future does not look good.  ESPN basically has taken advantage of "tying" where they bought exclusive rights to games, and to get the games the consumer needs the ESPN channels including all the noise that comes with it.  

The NFL, The B1G etc. can all go to a model where they deliver their games directly to consumers.  I hope that's where it's headed.  I couldn't care less about ESPN's politics.  Do I really know or care what Jemelle Hill or Sam Ponder know about US-Japan trade relations?  The network has bigger problems.  I think they have a sucky product that does not fit with where we are headed.  I would like to buy games in a suite or a la carte and the NFL or B1G can keep all the money for themselves without sharing with ESPN.  Plus, none of us would need the 100 channels that are "tied in" to our package that we simply do not care about or even know exist.  Hopefully we get into an efficient marketplace where we buy what we need only, and leave the rest on the cutting room floor.

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Since 2011, the number of cable subscriptions have dropped 16%.  ESPN's subscriptions have dropped 13% - from 100m to 87m. This, along with other justifications mentioned in this thread, point toward ESPN being hammered by general industry trends toward cord cutting.

ESPN charges $7.21 per month per subscriber. Losing 13 million subscribers is a staggering loss of revenue coming on top of a bubble with regards to rights fees.

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On 11/6/2017 at 1:24 PM, IU Scott said:

I think another reason for the decrease viewership of sports is the oversaturation of sports on TV.  I am 47 years old and remember a time before cable that it was a privilege to get to watch a game live.  You had 4 channels and most of the sports you would see was IU and PU basketball on channel for in Indy. In the NFL you had 2 or 3 games on Sunday and the Monday night game and that was it. Today you have the Thursday night and Sunday night game as well.  Also with the Red Zone people tend to watch that channel because it takes less of your attention to watch that channel.  In the MLB you had one game a week on NBC for a national game and maybe got about 50 Reds game locally a year. It was the same way with the NBA where you had one game a week on CBS that aired nationally and then you had some Pacers games on locally.

I remember there was a time when you were lucky to see one or two IU football games on TV a year. Before ESPN and ESPN+ shown on channel 4 and the BTN you only had games on ABC and they did not show IU very often.  Of course you got to see all of the IU basketball games locally or on national TV.  Also nationally all you got for college basketball was one or two games a week on NBC that you could watch.

To me, you hit the nail on the head.  Over saturation is one big ass part of it.  I am 50, the politics don't matter to me and never have.  Sure, I got my views, but to each their own.  But I like watching sports.  But now it is getting "over whelming".  Really, no different than the National news.  And to be honest, I am sick of it.  I cut the cord 2 years ago.  I follow my teams on the Net and watch movies on the TV.  At one time I tuned onto ESPN to watch sports, then it got like every thing was "Good Morning America".  Nothing but talking heads spouting off with agendas.  They lost the "KISS" moto.........Keep It Simple Stupid.  

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