CardsFan88
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- May 28, 2002
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It's optics. They can trot robots out there and they'll lose money.
They are hoping the idiots on Wall Street don't look too deeply into the situation and take these cuts as positive and as a reason not to tank Disney stock.
It's all about pissing off their customers, cord cutting, lower advertising revenue, and the subscription fee slowdown.
The average person doesn't want a $13 a month basic cable channel (currently ~$9). A privilege that is ending. It's going to have to be more like $20 for it to work, but that would cause even more people to ditch it. A toxic feedback loop for ESPN.
For DECADES they just kept upping the subscription fee every time a contract came up with a major provider (like Cox, Comcast, etc, etc), $2, $2.50, $3, 3.75, $5, 6.50, 8.....now they are basically an HBO inside of basic cable. What a great and unique deal. No other cable channel had such an advantage. Maybe they should have figured that out and respected it.
Hell they even said if they wanted to have their own full fledged streaming app, it would need to cost $30 a month.
The contracts they signed for content are greater then the revenue they take in. They just assumed that everything could go up in perpetuity. If memory serves correct they were anticipating $13 a month by around 2022-2023, and people wouldn't be cutting their cords. Not when people have plenty of options and the payoff is a big chunk of change not to have ESPN.
Just imagine the hubris involved to destroy the prestige of your channel, that also has such a privileged position in cable, when plenty of alternatives exist, and you are jacking the costs up to infinity and beyond. All tough when wages are flat to down from last century and everything costs double or triple (and usually in smaller packages).
They only have as long as Disney covers their costs.
AOL in 2001 had a better future then ESPN.
Then remember all the college/professional leagues that rely on that money. Players are going to go crazy when they figure out what lies ahead. Less money. It's going to be a nasty fight. Remember, OBJ believes he's worth ~$50 million a year to play 16 games for about 3-4 minutes of actual game time (A NFL game is ~11 minutes). He plays offense, one of three phases.
They are hoping the idiots on Wall Street don't look too deeply into the situation and take these cuts as positive and as a reason not to tank Disney stock.
It's all about pissing off their customers, cord cutting, lower advertising revenue, and the subscription fee slowdown.
The average person doesn't want a $13 a month basic cable channel (currently ~$9). A privilege that is ending. It's going to have to be more like $20 for it to work, but that would cause even more people to ditch it. A toxic feedback loop for ESPN.
For DECADES they just kept upping the subscription fee every time a contract came up with a major provider (like Cox, Comcast, etc, etc), $2, $2.50, $3, 3.75, $5, 6.50, 8.....now they are basically an HBO inside of basic cable. What a great and unique deal. No other cable channel had such an advantage. Maybe they should have figured that out and respected it.
Hell they even said if they wanted to have their own full fledged streaming app, it would need to cost $30 a month.
The contracts they signed for content are greater then the revenue they take in. They just assumed that everything could go up in perpetuity. If memory serves correct they were anticipating $13 a month by around 2022-2023, and people wouldn't be cutting their cords. Not when people have plenty of options and the payoff is a big chunk of change not to have ESPN.
Just imagine the hubris involved to destroy the prestige of your channel, that also has such a privileged position in cable, when plenty of alternatives exist, and you are jacking the costs up to infinity and beyond. All tough when wages are flat to down from last century and everything costs double or triple (and usually in smaller packages).
They only have as long as Disney covers their costs.
AOL in 2001 had a better future then ESPN.
Then remember all the college/professional leagues that rely on that money. Players are going to go crazy when they figure out what lies ahead. Less money. It's going to be a nasty fight. Remember, OBJ believes he's worth ~$50 million a year to play 16 games for about 3-4 minutes of actual game time (A NFL game is ~11 minutes). He plays offense, one of three phases.
