ESPN Can’t Afford Monday Night Football Any More • Hacker News Board

Re: ESPN Can’t Afford Monday Night Football Any More

#41

Post by sgloutnikov » Mon, Oct 30, 2017, 10:04 PM UTC

fotbr wrote: post #35

endtime wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What happens if the highest bidder can't pay the NFL enough to make it worthwhile? I keep seeing pictures of half-empty stands behind kneeling football players, and ultimately if the NFL destroys its value by alienating too many fans with politics, there's no reason the entire business won't or shouldn't collapse.

As for not paying the NFL enough to make it worthwhile: Someone will pick up the rights to show the games, or the league will offer their own service, or the games won't be played on Mondays/Thursdays and will go back to just being a Sunday sport. Regarding losing their audience and destroying their value: I stopped following the NFL not because of politics (the kneeling thing hadn't yet started), but because their p…

I completely agree with you on the commercial part, it has gotten ridiculous. If it was not for the NFL Red Zone channel, I think I would have given up also.

Re: ESPN Can’t Afford Monday Night Football Any More

#42

Post by disease » Mon, Oct 30, 2017, 10:06 PM UTC

brian-armstrong wrote: post #27

endtime wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What happens if the highest bidder can't pay the NFL enough to make it worthwhile? I keep seeing pictures of half-empty stands behind kneeling football players, and ultimately if the NFL destroys its value by alienating too many fans with politics, there's no reason the entire business won't or shouldn't collapse.

I'm always a little shocked when people admit outrage over kneeling players but don't seem at all concerned that the sport endangers the players' wellbeing. What do you think contributes to this empathy gap?

In the case of many, many people I have met in the Midwest: the answer is racism. These people for some reason can't seem to grasp the simple fact that players are protesting the fact that black people are being shot and killed for either petty crimes or no crimes at all. You certainly don't have to agree with their protest, but not being able to empathize reflects much poorly on you than it does them.

Re: ESPN Can’t Afford Monday Night Football Any More

#43

Post by exelius » Mon, Oct 30, 2017, 10:06 PM UTC

kodablah wrote: post #31

brian-armstrong wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given how traumatic the sport and related CTEs are, I wonder if falling salaries will spell the end of football

I do not believe so as I believe the issues are orthogonal. The livelihood of the sport is primarily driven by consumption not production IMO. You lose eyeballs, you lose everything. You lose players, more will fill their place and while the quality may decline, it will not be noticeable since it applies evenly. Everyone knows the NFL could reduce injuries even more, but not at the cost of eyeballs. In a purely capit…

Let's say you take the NFL's revenue and it drops by 90% (as I think it will relatively quickly once "TV" ad rates start to come in line with online video -- oh yes, all these issues are related). So the salary range would have to shift to say, $2-3M a year for the top stars and about $200,000 for vets; with rookies making $50k-ish. Sure there would be endorsements, but it wouldn't be the ubiquitous stardom. You're just another Instagram influencer.

You do that, and you take the wind out of the sails of a sport quickly. You probably have a better chance of success playing fantasy football (you know, gambling) than you would getting rich as a football player.

The adpocalypse is happening right now. We've been warning of it for years. Brands are figuring out their campaigns on "traditional TV" don't return nearly as much as targeted campaigns on online video on a per-dollar basis. The bloodbath is just beginning.

Re: ESPN Can’t Afford Monday Night Football Any More

#44

Post by praneshp » Mon, Oct 30, 2017, 10:07 PM UTC

brian-armstrong wrote: post #27

endtime wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What happens if the highest bidder can't pay the NFL enough to make it worthwhile? I keep seeing pictures of half-empty stands behind kneeling football players, and ultimately if the NFL destroys its value by alienating too many fans with politics, there's no reason the entire business won't or shouldn't collapse.

I'm always a little shocked when people admit outrage over kneeling players but don't seem at all concerned that the sport endangers the players' wellbeing. What do you think contributes to this empathy gap?

IMO, Money. People see kneeling as overpaid players throwing tantrums. They see the brain issues as the risk they take for being paid a lot.

Re: ESPN Can’t Afford Monday Night Football Any More

#45

Post by exabrial » Mon, Oct 30, 2017, 10:07 PM UTC

Once the NFL became political, a lot of hardcore fans stopped using it as an escape from the madness ever present in the news and social media. Seeing falling revenues doesn't surprise me.

The irony of my comment is I'm making plans to watch KC vs Denver... and it's Monday.

Re: ESPN Can’t Afford Monday Night Football Any More

#46

Post by ZoeZoeBee » Mon, Oct 30, 2017, 10:09 PM UTC

brian-armstrong wrote: post #27

endtime wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What happens if the highest bidder can't pay the NFL enough to make it worthwhile? I keep seeing pictures of half-empty stands behind kneeling football players, and ultimately if the NFL destroys its value by alienating too many fans with politics, there's no reason the entire business won't or shouldn't collapse.

I'm always a little shocked when people admit outrage over kneeling players but don't seem at all concerned that the sport endangers the players' wellbeing. What do you think contributes to this empathy gap?

It might have something to do with the fact that only 6% of Police Shootings involved an unarmed individual, and every year more white people are killed by police than African Americans. People would be more empathetic to the players supposed grievance if statistics backed them up

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/police-shoo...

Re: ESPN Can’t Afford Monday Night Football Any More

#47

Post by eru » Mon, Oct 30, 2017, 10:09 PM UTC

kodablah wrote: post #15

This is going to be one of many reasons there might be a lockout in 2020 when it's CBA renewal time. This is going to trickle down to the players. NFL can't continue charging exorbitant access fees which means they will have to request a serious reduction in the salary cap (the owners aren't going to be willing to eat these losses). I think this is great thing as the economics of large sports salaries have been artif…

Those salary caps are really weird. In 'socialist' Europe, we have no cap on football players pay, and the sky doesn't come down.

Re: ESPN Can’t Afford Monday Night Football Any More

#48

Post by kodablah » Mon, Oct 30, 2017, 10:10 PM UTC

jsmthrowaway wrote: post #40

kodablah wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's a completely superior experience to cable / OTA Can't watch ALL games live right? That's hardly completely superior. IMO, NFL would make less money on direct sales than they do when they charge networks which charge all cable subscribers (even via retransmission fees for those of us who can't get OTA) AND charge advertisers. That double dip is going to net more money than a specialized service for NFL fans.

> Can't watch ALL games live right? That's hardly completely superior. You can't on television, either.

True. You also can't even watch your local game live either IIRC. I should have made that clear...it is NOT completely superior.

Re: ESPN Can’t Afford Monday Night Football Any More

#49

Post by jly » Mon, Oct 30, 2017, 10:10 PM UTC

> But can ESPN exist as a network without NFL games?

Yes. It broadcasts talking about NFL, but that can continue whether it broadcasts their games or not. It has a 3-hour lead-in show on Sunday morning that gets sizable ratings while broadcasting zero games that day. Nobody subscribes to ESPN/cable just for MNF.

In contrast, ESPN broadcasts dozens of college football games per year and spends probably an equal amount of time - or more - discussing those. It spends about $1.4b per year in total on those TV rights which have lucrative advertising and cable subscriber value. That's in addition to all of the other sports ESPN broadcasts.

ESPN will bid less for MNF because they can't afford it any more but mostly because the ratings don't fully justify the current cost. The overall success of ESPN doesn't hinge solely on whether or not they broadcast any NFL games, it's based on how sensible the price is for the rights they own. They have plenty of other content to fill airtime that people watch and will pay a reasonable subscriber price for, even if that's not quite as much as they extract now from cable providers.

Re: ESPN Can’t Afford Monday Night Football Any More

#50

Post by PatientTrades » Mon, Oct 30, 2017, 10:12 PM UTC

ESPN's downward spiral perpetuated when their talk show hosts started pushing their politic agenda and a liberal bias (Not saying a liberal bias is wrong, but many people get turned off by it). Sports should be an escape from the daily political circus and a time to relax and enjoy entertainment. FS1 is quickly becoming the destination for many sports fans and ESPN will continue to lose viewers if they don't change.