Good article. I have one bicker point: I don't think ESPN is as "essential" as the article implies. We might have talked about this in the past, but I often wonder what the break down is between "I don't watch ESPN", "I watch ESPN for a specific team/event", and "I watch ESPN regardless of what's on/because I'm a huge [league/conference/sport] fan and they have them." The example of the second group would be a person in the Detroit area who watch if they had the Pistons, Tigers, Lions, Wolverines, Spartans, or [Directional] Michigan (or any combination thereof), but that's it.
Also wanted to share a month-old article from the Times, but it shows how far back ESPN was looking to expand its grasp. One of the big reasons NFLN struggled to get carriage (as our TWC friends in NYC are aware) was that it was oversold to owners in terms of income. Therefore, rather than lower the price, they held firm and waited, even after they started airing live games, They could've gotten a lot more money faster, but the owners, having been sold that this thing would be profitable at $X/subscriber, wouldn't budge. In 2009, NFLN and ESPN were very close to an agreement that would've sold 50% of the network to ESPN for cash and (more importantly) access to some of ESPN's college football games. In exchange, the NFL would improve the MNF schedule. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/28/business/media/nfl-networks-10-year-gains-13-games-and-72-million-homes.html?pagewanted=2&nl=business&emc=edit_at_20131028 On Thu, Nov 21, 2013 at 1:30 AM, PGage <[email protected]> wrote: > This is a nice summary of why ESPN is so afraid of Fox Sports and its kind: > > > http://www.businessinsider.com/why-espn-may-be-in-trouble-even-though-it-continues-to-dominate-the-competition-2013-11 > > ESPN's costs for major live sports is going up about 67% soon (from $2.8B > to $4.7B); even though they still dominate, and generate tons of cash > ($6.5B & $3.5B from subscription fees and ads respectively), their model > requires them to dominate the cable sports content market. If they become > even a little less than essential for sports fans and their subscription > fees flatten and ad fees fall. > -- -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TVorNotTV" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
