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2016 Cut the Cord Thread

Does that impact LeBrun's TSN gig?

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Nevermind, it doesn't:


Pierre LeBrun ‎@PierreVLeBrun


Want to thank http://ESPN.com for 9 fun years. Absolutely loved the gig. And very much look forward to continuing my work at TSN/RDS
 
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Deadspin and Awful Announcing have a running tally.

Add Danny Kanell, Johnette Howard, Jayson Stark and Jane McManus to more high profile names. Supposedly, Karl Ravech, Hannah Storm and Ryen Russillo were told they're safe but in reduced roles. Still no word on Buccigross.

And as Richard Deitsch tweeted earlier, these layoffs are especially frustrating when you realize that ESPN essentially backed up a Briggs truck to Skip Bayless' house last year in a futile effort to keep him.
 
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While I still have Spectrum Internet, I turned in my cable box and bought a Roku.

I then when to Sling Blue. It has NBC Sports and Fox Sports South, but no ESPN. I don't care since ESPN has become the home for a bunch of talking heads pontificating on which NBA players are BFFs or frenemies. It's programing for 12 year olds.

The USA network comes with Blue, but I had to order the $10 news add-on to get CNBC. I'll be dropping that once they no longer broadcast playoff games. You get BBC WorldNews along with a bunch of propaganda channels (FoxNews, MSNBC, RT, Blaze, ugh!!!!) I like the BBC but it burdens my soul to think I'm somehow contributing to the bottom line of those cable shows masquerading as journalist.

I also found some obscure channel for Hockey Leagues only a Canadian would know about. I'm hoping to catch the St. Johns/ Cinquuinnipacqquiccqic game.

So far, I'm very happy with Sling, Hulu and Netflix and do not miss cable.
 
Add Trent Dilfer.

Richard Deitsch tweeted that Baseball Tonight franchise will be significantly affected. With Jasyon Stark gone and Ravech supposedly in a reduced role, that makes sense. But that also means other shoes still have to drop.

Edit: Add Jay Crawford to the list

Deitsch further tweeted that multiple sources indicate that ESPN may use some of MLB Network's studio programming to cover the Baseball Tonight void. The irony is rich...Harold Reynolds, whacked at ESPN in 2006 amid a sexual harrassment scandal, re-appearing on an outsourced show.
 
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They seriously have just destroyed their baseball coverage and pretty much ended the limited hockey coverage they had. Talk about swinging the axe.
 
I only watch games on ESPN so I have no idea who these people are. I have no use for shows where they sit around and yell at each other I guess a lot of people are like me in that regard.
 
They'll still call themselves the Worldwide Leader although they've dwindled to a niche provider.
 
And for the record, if I were doing the cuts, Vitale and Berman would go first. Fat chance of that happening.
 
well they are still big in college sports and major sports except the NHL. I doubt they have anything against the NHL , they just can make more money elsewhere.

How many years did the NHL go without a national TV contract? A good long while. NHL is by far #4 among the big 4 and they are not really that close to the other 3 .

Berman is already mostly gone since last year. I'm surprised Vitale has not moved to CBS or even Turner so that he can do NCAA games. I guess ESPN pays him big bucks and he's loyal to them. Vitale trivia , he applied to be an assistant to Valvano at NCSU in 1980 but was not hired so that's when he went to ESPN.
 
One more thing too. The ESPNU studio in Charlotte is closing down and moving to Bristol.
 
I watched Baseball Tonight last night....add Raul Ibanez and Doug Glanville to the list of those shown the door.
 
Andy Katz got cut too. After gutting baseball and their small hockey presence, they're going after college basketball now.
 
HNIM said:
And for the record, if I were doing the cuts, Vitale and Berman would go first. Fat chance of that happening.
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They have already negotiated Berman's retirement, so there'd really be no point in doing it now. Vitale ... dunno. For some odd reason ESPN/ABC still see him as an important part of what they do with college hoops. In truth he's like Berman was 5 years ago or so ... a bad caricature of his former self.

I looked through these cuts this morning and aside from the obvious decision they made to de-emphasize hockey, I can really only count one or two of these folks who do anything like what I consider to be quality work. Not speaking ill of the dead or anything, it's just that ESPN has grown to be so incredibly bloated with non-contributors or quasi-contributors that a blind man could start swinging a katana in Bristol and save them a quarter of their on air payroll costs and actually improve the final product. Same pretty much holds true for the written word portion of their web presence ... although honestly that might be worse.

And at this point the real question is just why in heck Disney lets Bill Skipper continue to run that obviously sinking ship.
 
andyt said:
Andy Katz got cut too. After gutting baseball and their small hockey presence, they're going after college basketball now.
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Out of all the people cut, Katz is probably the one that surprises me the most. He did pretty good work. Will be interested to see where he lands.

ESPN and big time sports in general are ripe for disruption right now. Something, likely online, is going to fill the void that is being created here.
 
Again, I don't see any real void being left. ESPN had to be the most bloated operation since the Rather era CBS national news outfit in NYC. My only surprise is that they didn't cut deeper.
 
jeffbear said:
Again, I don't see any real void being left. ESPN had to be the most bloated operation since the Rather era CBS national news outfit in NYC. My only surprise is that they didn't cut deeper.
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The void is actual good sports coverage without people screaming at each other and telling me how to think. Covereage based on fact and not opinion would be very refreshing to me....and don't get me started on cable news.

I don't think the ESPN model survives long term regardless of who they cut. The are possibly headed to be the next Blockbuster as soon as Netflix, Google, Apple, Amazon or the next big things starts acquiring rights and builds a better content delivery model for sports. Sports is all broadcast TV has that drives live viewership (and in turn advertisers) but disruption is on the way. There is just too much money on the table for a startup or company with huge cash reserves to keep ignoring.
 
I blame ESPN for helping make players bigger than the game. After watching high school kids decide which college they'll be attending or LeBron James make his announcement, I view this cut back as a blessing. No way sports needs this type of bloated coverage. I consider this just a giant market correction and love it!
 
CarolinaPen said:
The void is actual good sports coverage without people screaming at each other and telling me how to think.
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Truth. Although it's worth pointing out that pretty much every primary source of broadcast sports is just as bad. Worse, in the UK in fact. Even the buttoned down BBC is absolutely enthralled with talking head "experts" who really only drive sane, reasonable people away from their coverage. Oddly enough, I felt like in recent years ESPN did a better job with the relatively lower key (for them) stuff like World Cups and Golf and really blew the BS meter out of the building on NBA, NFL and MLB (to a lesser degree) coverage.

But the real issue for them over the next 5-10 years is the bigger financial picture. People cancelling cable packages entirely are a MUCH bigger factor than people just bailing on ESPN specifically. This cannot be over stressed. All basic cable outlets have the same basic problem at this point. The difference being that ESPN's model is much more heavily driven by existing rights fees. That just means the piper comes due much quicker for them than a mainstream network that has entertainment programming to soften the blow of reduced revenues in their sports departments.
 
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