To End The FReepathon
According to Obama, our sports heroes are Muslims. Whatever sport he is talking about, people apparently don’t want to pay to see it.
Rush has often made the point that sports broadcasters are the most radically left wing of all 'journalists'. With the added bonus in most cases of not being bright enough to be 'real' journalists. Talk about failing to meet a low bar!
And that will finish them off completely.
Too many thugs on the teams now for me to enjoy watching much any more. I now stick with golf, mainly.
Amazing....best economics article I’ve seen in a while...and it’s in THE BEAST.
Are ESPN’s troubles simply due to increased competition? Fox Sports 1 shows actual sports programming, not just idiot loudmouths screaming about sports.
The Sports Bubble isn’t popping (yet). The ESPN bubble is popping.
The NFL largely relies on “free” network television, and now has its own network and the popular “Sunday Ticket” options available outside of ESPN, which is a small piece of teh NFL pie.
Now, over the last four decades sports interests have goneup and down. Baseball attendance is up over the ‘70s, but viewership is WAY down except in a few baseball markets (Boston, NY, St. Louis, Chicago). Hockey is down. Basketball is down.
Football is up. Soccer has become a fifth major niche sport in the U.S. In past generations we watched a LOT more boxing, more wrestling. Heck, my local affiliate even bumped scheduled prime time programming on ABC for a local bowling match called “Ten Pin Pickup” (WTNH-TV, New Haven, 1970s). In the ‘70s there was even a professional tennis league that received coverage in the local papers (Los Angeles Aztec, New York Sets, etc.)
In those days, ESPN was struggling to fill scheduling time with Australian Rules Football and Crew.
These days, instead of two NFL games on Sunday and one on Monday Night during most of the regular season, we have the Sunday games, plus games on Sunday, Thursday AND Monday nights.
The NFL has successfully marketed itself in a way that transcends local markets.Their can be a minimally important Thursday night game between Jacksonville and Indianapolis. It WILL get #1 in its time slot. Some of it is gambling, more has to do with fantasy sports, some has to do with a mild interest in how the game affects other teams’ playoff/division chances. Most is they like watching a decent football game.
Now that any NFL fan can pretty much watch any game (and he mostly doesn’t need ESPN to do it), more NFL football gets consumed than all of theother sports. ESPN has made its money largely by getting people to watch programs ABOUT the NFL (draft previews, etc.), but most of that can be done by Fox Sports or any other network that cares to run with it (outside of special events like the actual draft, which is still easily covwered by other channels and web sites, anyway).
Sports bubble? No. Sports consolidation. Cable TV channel bubble? Yes.
I’ve noticed that a lot of younger people aren’t that interested in the NFL. Their average viewer age has got to be climbing. Add in all the ‘white noise’ over head injuries and redskins, and things could get ugly for the NFL.
What is this “ESPN” thing about which this article refers? I know it not.
Oldplayer
Everything’s moving away from “pay-per-X,” because the self-important millenials don’t believe they should pay for entertainment. If anything, it’ll move to Internet-based distribution.
PPV isn’t going to cover many $200 million contracts for baseball players. Pro football may be able to make it on PPV.
I only watch Golf now that tiger is gone ,everything is sooo green
I love sports and much as anyone and play many different ones but, in all honesty, if the MLB/NFL/NBA, etc stopped playing tomorrow it wouldn’t bother me in the least.
i didn't read past that money shot....there are a few here like that
No. It’s just a change in paths. Most sports are doing fine in attendance and revenue, and even TV ratings. Cable is having an issue, which is pinging the cable networks, but they’re still getting killer ratings, they’re just having issues with the base money stream. Meanwhile the NFL put their first game on just the internet, and it did fine.
“Sports Illustrated’s” NFL writer Peter King is one of the worst.
He actually did an extensive piece in his column about his daughter’s wedding complete with pictures. It was during the off season so he had to have something to write about. And he was busy with the wedding in the week or so before his column ran. Problem? His daughter was marrying her lesbian partner.