Blood Letting at ESPN

ESPN laid off a hundred people in a story that was supposed to get everybody up in arms but it turned out everybody kind of went, meh, hockey. About half of the layoffs were on-air personalities, which meant a bad day for any number of former athletes with interchangeable analysts gigs. How many NFL analysts do you need? Apparently a ton because most of those fired were in other sports.

ESPN has fallen victim to cord cutting by cable customers who used to be forced pay for ESPN even when they didn’t watch ESPN. Apparently there are some people out there who aren’t obsessed with college and professional sports. You don’t know any, but assume it’s true. ESPN pays more for content than any other channel due to its massive sporting event and league deals. It also receives more money from cable providers than any other channel. Per subscriber. It’s going to be a sweet cash raking business for at least another decade. Just a billion less per year. Hence the cuts.

A number of people are hooting about ESPN’s downfall due to it’s Disney/ABC parent corps liberal media bias. It’s a nice thought. There’s no evidence anybody’s decided to stop watching Steph Curry and LeBron James in the NBA playoffs due to intrusions of political bias into channel content. Though it may very well be true. This is due to people unbundling ESPN and adding more TLC and Bravo to their subscription cards. Also the big move to streaming services. ESPN’s down some 10-15 million paid subscribers in the past few years. Those are largely people who were never watching in the first place but forced to pay.

Sports, gambling, and porn will continue to thrive until the bulk of the male population is converted to beta prototypes as envisioned gleefully by so many. You may not be a personal fan of ESPN, but when it finally dies, it’ll be a really bad sign for the rest of the stuff you love. Considering going with. The hot sideline reporters are all gone. Jump.

_{Photo credit: ESPN}