A thread about ESPN/Disney and the future of College Football broadcasting

You gotta love it. ESPN getting ESPN'd. They've screwed up college football and now they're getting the same treatment. How's those big TV contracts now, Bristol?
 
Here's a very long read from Outkick on the subject. It may be overly bleak on the timeline for ESPN but I think most of the rest seems accurate:

Latest Analysis, News, Rumors, and Articles by OutKick

Fearless, authentic, and wokeless reporting from Clay Travis and OutKick Contributors. Sign up to the Daily OutKick to never miss a beat.
www.outkick.com www.outkick.com

I feel that MLB is already having the problems he describes. I jump through hoops (VPN/MLB sub at $130/yr) to watch Braves games but this is a historically good team with the best record in the league. No way I am going to jump through hoops to watch any NCAA outside of the GT game.

I'm wondering if the expanded playoff is even going to happen. Given what a bad product NCAA games have become, I think there is going to be a move to form the factory league even sooner. The rest of the "have not's" are going to take a huge financial hit and go back to something more akin to the pre NIL, stipend, portal days.
 
boozinbuzz said:
Here's a very long read from Outkick on the subject. It may be overly bleak on the timeline for ESPN but I think most of the rest seems accurate:

Latest Analysis, News, Rumors, and Articles by OutKick

Fearless, authentic, and wokeless reporting from Clay Travis and OutKick Contributors. Sign up to the Daily OutKick to never miss a beat.
www.outkick.com www.outkick.com

I feel that MLB is already having the problems he describes. I jump through hoops (VPN/MLB sub at $130/yr) to watch Braves games but this is a historically good team with the best record in the league. No way I am going to jump through hoops to watch any NCAA outside of the GT game.

I'm wondering if the expanded playoff is even going to happen. Given what a bad product NCAA games have become, I think there is going to be a move to form the factory league even sooner. The rest of the "have not's" are going to take a huge financial hit and go back to something more akin to the pre NIL, stipend, portal days.
Click to expand...
Everyone should read that article. It's a bit long winded but certainly paints the picture with some clarity.

He doesn't even touch on the fact that we are in a zombie economy with asset bubbles everywhere, a looming banking crisis, a geopolitical firestorm raging and domestic bedlam unfolding right in front of us. The öööö is coming in like a Nolan Ryan fastball straight into the fan.

As far as I'm concerned, öööö ESPN and öööö Disney. They are pigs and are actively destroying something I loved. They are actively destroying more than just sports. It's a microcosm for all that has been going on for many years now. As Oliver Anthony sings, "It's damn shame what the world's gotten to."
 
Buzzilla said:
Everyone should read that article. It's a bit long winded but certainly paints the picture with some clarity.

He doesn't even touch on the fact that we are in a zombie economy with asset bubbles everywhere, a looming banking crisis, a geopolitical firestorm raging and domestic bedlam unfolding right in front of us. The öööö is coming in like a Nolan Ryan fastball straight into the fan.

As far as I'm concerned, öööö ESPN and öööö Disney. They are pigs and are actively destroying something I loved. They are actively destroying more than just sports. It's a microcosm for all that has been going on for many years now. As Oliver Anthony sings, "It's damn shame what the world's gotten to."
Click to expand...
Agreed. Great article.

ESPN is cutting off their nose to spite their face. Sure, they're mostly doomed b/c cable subscribers keep dropping, but they decided to massively accelerate things by deciding to not proceed with Charter Spectrum. It's wild to watch.
 
The more I think of it, the more I realize that ESPN will not survive in its current form. I could see ESPN offering their expertise in filming games and providing statistics to leagues who want a lighter weight middleman that allows a direct-to-consumer offering. I could also see Disney deciding to push a few media deals to Hulu to see how it goes (i.e. you already have subscribers there for Hulu content, but maybe you can offer slightly more for another sport league and cable news, which gets cable news to subsidize that sport league and vice versa). I'm really interested to see how this evolves b/c whether we want it or not, the sports landscape will be changing.

Another issue that the author of that piece quickly touched on is the impact ESPN's destruction has on the leagues/players, themselves. If you're in a smaller league, you're riding the coattails of the bigger leagues that drive subscribers to ESPN. The smaller leagues must be hoping and praying that the bigger leagues don't go direct-to-consumer b/c the moment that happens, they're doomed.
 
boozinbuzz said:
Here's a very long read from Outkick on the subject. It may be overly bleak on the timeline for ESPN but I think most of the rest seems accurate:

Latest Analysis, News, Rumors, and Articles by OutKick

Fearless, authentic, and wokeless reporting from Clay Travis and OutKick Contributors. Sign up to the Daily OutKick to never miss a beat.
www.outkick.com www.outkick.com

I feel that MLB is already having the problems he describes. I jump through hoops (VPN/MLB sub at $130/yr) to watch Braves games but this is a historically good team with the best record in the league. No way I am going to jump through hoops to watch any NCAA outside of the GT game.

I'm wondering if the expanded playoff is even going to happen. Given what a bad product NCAA games have become, I think there is going to be a move to form the factory league even sooner. The rest of the "have not's" are going to take a huge financial hit and go back to something more akin to the pre NIL, stipend, portal days.
Click to expand...

Thanks for sharing that, good summary read. Made me very nostalgic for the early, glory days of ESPN when it was, as he says, literally the only way to get up to the minute sports news.
 
The article is spot on. We have taken something very good and ruined it. As a Spectrum customer, they really do not care if I cut the cable cord as long as I keep their high speed internet service. There are no streaming services that provide all I get with my cable bundle. And, once we eventually kill the cable system the pricing for streaming will soar.

I have decided to ride out the blackout. I hate not getting ABC and I am missing sporting events, this past week not seeing US Open tennis has been the worst. But, if I miss every sporting event ESPN and the ACC network and others owned by Disney broadcasts I will just miss them. I grew up with limited sports viewing available and can adjust again. It was great while it lasted to have so much sports programming to enjoy for a reasonable cost with simple, easy access. But, like many things, we are prone to destroy much of what was actually pretty good.
 
ESPN just got waaaaaaay too big for their britches. They injected *massive* dollars into amateur sports and made it into a pseudo-professional league. Now people are just getting really tired of it (the non-stop commercials - and - the political correctness, IMPO), and cable carriers know this, and are backing off the prices that ESPN tries to levy for their content. I think it's the tip of the iceberg that ESPN is seeing. What happens when they default on those huge contracts they have entered into? Problem is, Fox is now walking down that same path. So, the solution is not just ESPN. It will be a while before we see the full-scale changes.
 
I'm sorry, I'd rather watch a game via cable or a satellite dish. I live in a rural where streaming content isn't the best sometimes.
 
Wow. I had no idea on the scale of the liabilities or its true numbers ESPN is facing, and he brings up an excellent point around that.

Why would anyone pay for ESPN in this state of things?
 
77GTFan said:
The article is spot on. We have taken something very good and ruined it. As a Spectrum customer, they really do not care if I cut the cable cord as long as I keep their high speed internet service. There are no streaming services that provide all I get with my cable bundle. And, once we eventually kill the cable system the pricing for streaming will soar.

I have decided to ride out the blackout. I hate not getting ABC and I am missing sporting events, this past week not seeing US Open tennis has been the worst. But, if I miss every sporting event ESPN and the ACC network and others owned by Disney broadcasts I will just miss them. I grew up with limited sports viewing available and can adjust again. It was great while it lasted to have so much sports programming to enjoy for a reasonable cost with simple, easy access. But, like many things, we are prone to destroy much of what was actually pretty good.
Click to expand...

you should be able to get ABC via antenna unless you're in a dead zone?

i hate how ESPN/DISNEY puts their biggest college football games on ESPN and not ABC... no other sport in the country has their championship games on ESPN ... they are all on a broadcast networks its greedy bullshit
 
gt9589 said:
I'm sorry, I'd rather watch a game via cable or a satellite dish. I live in a rural where streaming content isn't the best sometimes.
Click to expand...

It will be interesting to see how the powers that be address people that can't reliably stream content. I suppose Satellite service will always be available, but the cost might be crazy.
 
coit said:
It will be interesting to see how the powers that be address people that can't reliably stream content. I suppose Satellite service will always be available, but the cost might be crazy.
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maybe satellite internet will get better? starlink?
 
I heard that there are some entities/companies out there trying to solve high speed internet to satellite via your mobile phones. Not that it would help me and my big screen TV lol. Basically developing something for smart phones that allows you to access internet from anywhere.
 
One point that loses me is that I paid for ESPN as part of a bundle when I had cable. I've since cut the cord and have YouTubeTV streaming, where I am paying for ESPN as part of a bundle. How is ESPN losing? Is the article predicting the coming of ala cart streaming and that is what will kill ESPN? Or is it that many of the streaming options don't include ESPN and many cord-cutters are choosing those options?
 
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