Foxsports: Is ESPN A Giant Bubble About To Burst?

[Busch1724]

I think the angle everyone has missed so far is, sure ESPN has lots of rights fees to pay out. If cord cutters continue to increase, who's left to watch watch ESPN has contracts for? It's preventative maintenance.

 

The other thing, if I'm the NFL, NBA, etc.; I'm scared if cord cutting continues to happen because who will watch the programming? Sure the leagues have contracts in which they will get paid until the contracts run out, but if ESPN gets out of the live sports business due  to cord cutters what network is going to pay the insane amount of money ESPN is paying? Will ESPN pay the amounts they are paying now? If I'm the NFL and ESPN paid double what the networks paid for more than one game each week, imagine the loss of revenue on the next Monday Night Football deal if ESPN lowers their offer or gets out of the mix totally. Cord cutting won't just affect ESPN, it'll affect revenue of the leagues. Will buying league seasons a la cart like the Sunday Ticket be profitable for the leagues? 

[Kosher Ham]

I think the angle everyone has missed so far is, sure ESPN has lots of rights fees to pay out. If cord cutters continue to increase, who's left to watch watch ESPN has contracts for? It's preventative maintenance.

 

The other thing, if I'm the NFL, NBA, etc.; I'm scared if cord cutting continues to happen because who will watch the programming?

 

The billions of dollars they have...  They (NFL, NBA) could easily give us just the games we want to watch. For example, just the Redskins as a subscription, any other game...PPV. The major networks would still want to carry the big games every week, but they wouldn't have to. Those major league conglomerates could easily cut out the middle man if they wanted to, and still have commercial dollars rolling in from the four major networks. 

[skinfan2k]

i still miss the 90s when NBC used to show triple or quadruple NBA games on sunday.  Loved watching Bulls, Knicks, Pacers, Spurs, Rockets, Lakers, Jazz, Sonics games on a sunday 

[ixcuincle]

3 major

 

I think the angle everyone has missed so far is, sure ESPN has lots of rights fees to pay out. If cord cutters continue to increase, who's left to watch watch ESPN has contracts for? It's preventative maintenance.

 

The other thing, if I'm the NFL, NBA, etc.; I'm scared if cord cutting continues to happen because who will watch the programming? Sure the leagues have contracts in which they will get paid until the contracts run out, but if ESPN gets out of the live sports business due  to cord cutters what network is going to pay the insane amount of money ESPN is paying? Will ESPN pay the amounts they are paying now? If I'm the NFL and ESPN paid double what the networks paid for more than one game each week, imagine the loss of revenue on the next Monday Night Football deal if ESPN lowers their offer or gets out of the mix totally. Cord cutting won't just affect ESPN, it'll affect revenue of the leagues. Will buying league seasons a la cart like the Sunday Ticket be profitable for the leagues? 

 

Cord Cutting is not to the degree that it'll impact ESPN's profit margin. As someone said before ESPN continues to get dominant ratings even with this so called "Cord Cutter revolution". 

 

And I may seem like a luddite because I don't use this Amazon Fire stick or CHROMETVCAST or whatever you all use but the fact of the matter is it's too difficult to follow sports without cable. And I've tried, I've tried to do so since 2007. You cannot do it. The antenna always gets interference. The signal sucks. It's a real nuisance. And the internet streams are blocky and of poor quality. 

IF you have cable you can just turn the TV on and change the channel, takes very little of your time. Yeah, cable isn't going away anytime soon. Not with more and more properties moving to cable. Why do you think they moved the NCAA tournament and BCS National Championship to cable, even though they'd get lower viewers? Because they want you to buy cable.