Major Layoffs at ESPN?

[Mark Jeffries]

Granted, Deadspin isn't the most impartial source, but they claim that a three-digit number of employees are being laid off from the Worldwide Leader as mandated by Disney, presumably to leverage from higher and more rights fees (including grabbing all U.S. Open tennis rights)--the technology department seems to be the hardest hit, but it also looks like "UNITE," ESPNU's attempt at a hip late-night show is also being affected and will be off the air by July:

http://deadspin.com/source-espn-laying-off-hundreds-509043249

However, ESPN will continue to spend $125M on a new studio building that will house the ridiculously elaborate new set for "SportsCenter."  Somehow, all Dan and Keith needed was a desk and that 3x3 video wall.

[PGage]

On Tue, May 21, 2013 at 11:23 AM, Mark Jeffries <spotl...@gmail.com> wrote:

Granted, Deadspin isn't the most impartial source, but they claim that a three-digit number of employees are being laid off from the Worldwide Leader as mandated by Disney, presumably to leverage from higher and more rights fees (including grabbing all U.S. Open tennis rights)--the technology department seems to be the hardest hit, but it also looks like "UNITE," ESPNU's attempt at a hip late-night show is also being affected and will be off the air by July:

http://deadspin.com/source-espn-laying-off-hundreds-509043249

 

I am always eager to take a dump on Disney corporate and management culture, and to the extent this is an attempt to lay off older and more expensive workers with younger/cheaper ones this is an appropriate juncture to take such a dump (and if they are not careful with that they might break some laws). But it is worth making two points in Disney's favor:

 

1. Some of what they seem to be cutting is not just fat, but crap (UNITE is a good example). I don't have a problem with a company deciding they no longer want to invest lots of money in ventures which may have seemed like a good idea at one time but no longer are.

 

2. While high profit margins have become a driving expectation at ESPN, a source of multiple evils, this is also part of their anticipatory response to the Fox Sports channel, and ramped up sports cable operations at NBC and CBS. They have already said that the main advantage Fox has is its live sports rights, and implied that they would be working to improve their position in that area - as Mark notes the US Open is part of that. The problem with the sequence of events is that sports rights are expensive, which in the case of ESPN means everybody pays; plus the increased competition drives up the rights fees for everything and everybody else.

My point with #2 is that even in a universe where TV ratings are down, home entertainment is fracturing and the recovery from a Great Recession is sluggish, this is signaling that live sports rights fees for TV are going to increase even more. This is bad news, for cable rates, but also for sports fans. Probably 75% or more of what is wrong with spectator sports in this country over the last 40 years or so is a direct or indirect result of the obscene amounts of money they generate. Fans would enjoy the NBA just as much if Lebron only made $9M/year instead of $19M, or the Heat were only worth $310M instead of $625M. Given that there are so many millions of dollars being generated by the NBA (almost all of it from television revenue) I don't begrudge the players getting as large a share as possible, I just wish there was less cash in the system. I had some hope that various structural changes in the economy and society were going to exert downward pressure on TV rights fees, and on the cash supply in sports. I see now that was naive.

[stannc]

The channel changes page for my local Time Warner affiliate says that they may drop the CBS Sports Channel. Honestly, I couldn't tell you what they have on that channel.

Bringing it back to ESPN, how about they sell off some cable real estate and lower my cable rates? Is ESPN Classic still a thing or did that get spun off to someone? Do we really need the main channel, 2, U, News, and 3.com? Have I missed any?

-Stan

[Mark Jeffries]

Classic is still in business--since I had to drop down a tier last year, I have no idea what they're doing now.

Mark Jeffries
Saints Spotlight Editor
spotl...@gmail.com

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[Jim Ellwanger]

On May 24, 2013, at 3:36 PM, stannc wrote:

> The channel changes page for my local Time Warner affiliate says that they may drop the CBS Sports Channel. Honestly, I couldn't tell you what they have on that channel.

I know they carried some football games of whatever conference Syracuse was in last year - watched my alma mater play at Syracuse on CBS Sports.

> Bringing it back to ESPN, how about they sell off some cable real estate and lower my cable rates? Is ESPN Classic still a thing or did that get spun off to someone? Do we really need the main channel, 2, U, News, and 3.com? Have I missed any?

And that's not even including the "alternate" versions of ESPN and ESPN 2 that are sometimes necessary on DirecTV. (Cable systems are in an either/or situation when the "alternate" feeds become necessary, but DirecTV has to keep channel space available for both.)

There are a lot of sporting events out there -- and the problem is not that there are too many ESPN channels, the problem is that ESPN has paid a lot of money for the rights to carry a lot of sporting events.

--
Jim Ellwanger <trai...@ellwanger.tv>
<http://www.ellwanger.tv>

[Bob in Jersey]

Mark Jeffries, to stannc:

Classic is still in business--since I had to drop down a tier last year, I have no idea what they're doing now.

They haven't changed that much... still a gosh-durn big library of events, movies, a few series like Friday Night Lights, plenty of documentary stuff, and all those annoying interviews by Jim Rome, Roy Firestone, Dick Schaap et al...  -- B.

[stannc]

What they lost, however was the replays of classic games, since each league's own network gas reclaimed those for their own programming.

-Stan

[Joe Hass]

On Tue, May 21, 2013 at 1:23 PM, Mark Jeffries <spotl...@gmail.com> wrote (excerpted):

Granted, Deadspin isn't the most impartial source...

 

I think Deadspin has shown the reporting chops over the past year that taking this attitude towards them is no longer based in reality. They broke a very significant story here, one that was validated by James Miller (author of Those Guys Have All The Fun) rather quickly.

However, ESPN will continue to spend $125M on a new studio building that will house the ridiculously elaborate new set for "SportsCenter."  Somehow, all Dan and Keith needed was a desk and that 3x3 video wall.

Floating around my VCR library is the 11 PM Sportscenter the night of Jim Valvano's death. I'm not home to confirm this, but Valvano's death merited about three minutes of coverage. I can't imagine what would happen in today's environment.

On Wed, May 22, 2013 at 10:03 AM, PGage <pga...@gmail.com> wrote (excerpted):

 

2. While high profit margins have become a driving expectation at ESPN, a source of multiple evils, this is also part of their anticipatory response to the Fox Sports channel, and ramped up sports cable operations at NBC and CBS. They have already said that the main advantage Fox has is its live sports rights, and implied that they would be working to improve their position in that area - as Mark notes the US Open is part of that. The problem with the sequence of events is that sports rights are expensive, which in the case of ESPN means everybody pays; plus the increased competition drives up the rights fees for everything and everybody else.

My point with #2 is that even in a universe where TV ratings are down, home entertainment is fracturing and the recovery from a Great Recession is sluggish, this is signaling that live sports rights fees for TV are going to increase even more. This is bad news, for cable rates, but also for sports fans. Probably 75% or more of what is wrong with spectator sports in this country over the last 40 years or so is a direct or indirect result of the obscene amounts of money they generate. Fans would enjoy the NBA just as much if Lebron only made $9M/year instead of $19M, or the Heat were only worth $310M instead of $625M. Given that there are so many millions of dollars being generated by the NBA (almost all of it from television revenue) I don't begrudge the players getting as large a share as possible, I just wish there was less cash in the system. I had some hope that various structural changes in the economy and society were going to exert downward pressure on TV rights fees, and on the cash supply in sports. I see now that was naive.

I'm with you 100% on this. I keep thinking this is a bubble that's itching to pop, when in fact it appears that the market will just continue to support it to any insane level. The *only* thing that's going to stop it (as I think I've mentioned on here before) is if some cable operator decides to move all the sports channels (including the RSN) to a stand-alone sports tier available to any level and shows some sort of significant improvement to the bottom line. 

On Fri, May 24, 2013 at 5:36 PM, stannc <sta...@gmail.com> wrote:

The channel changes page for my local Time Warner affiliate says that they may drop the CBS Sports Channel. Honestly, I couldn't tell you what they have on that channe

The former CSTV (for College Sports TV) and CBSCS (CBS College Sports) still primarily covers college sports. They've expanded to include a little bit of CBS Sports expanded coverage (Masters week, Super Bowl week).

 

Bringing it back to ESPN, how about they sell off some cable real estate and lower my cable rates? Is ESPN Classic still a thing or did that get spun off to someone? Do we really need the main channel, 2, U, News, and 3.com? Have I missed any?

There was a time a while ago when ESPN was offering providers the choice of swapping Classic for U with the idea that Classic has become far more mothballed. I mean, they're creating the SEC channel, for heavens sake, which they can use to populate ESPNC and ESPNU as needed.

If they can sell ad time on it, they'll keep pushing it.

On Sat, May 25, 2013 at 7:52 PM, stannc <sta...@gmail.com> wrote:

What they lost, however was the replays of classic games, since each league's own network [has] reclaimed those for their own programming.

I know not all of the classic content moved off the channel, but I'm guessing they're not getting any new content that isn't owned by ESPN (so you're probably not seeing Game 6 of the 2011 World Series).