I haven't read this yet and don't know any of the names but shooting from the hip it seems like a major corporate event. And it likely needs to achieve certain goals besides saving money (?) with whom they choose to retain and the look they want to keep. Lakers haters and east coast honks are probably safe. If anyone cares we can track BSPN here. http://www.sportingnews.com/other-s...nalysts-jounalists/1e1eof0b12l331b7pkw33i5wo0
I really don't think their are any ESPN commentators / journalist that I tune in to see simply because they're interesting. I like a lot of what Stephen A says and feel he's tapped into / trusted by a lot of players, but I also find him annoying (loud) and inconsistent with his social stances. Otherwise, they can all go and I wouldn't miss them. ESPN says they have to do this to save money due to the NFL and NBA contracts.
ESPN is bleeding as people cut the cord and move towards streaming services. Instead of getting ahead of that curve, they went another direction and might pay the ultimate price for it. Personally I don't like these moves. I find Stephen A. Smith repugnant. I hate Skip Bayless. I don't like any of the things those guys has to offer as far as content goes. The people ESPN fired today were just good ol' fashioned journalists and reporters. Tough break for them, but most should find jobs at other sporting outlets. The key here is... who is watching SportsCenter anymore? I'm not. If I want highlights, I go to Youtube or Twitter or something. If I want commentary, I can read it in a quick article and lord knows there's a million of those on the internet. ESPN is in big trouble and instead of addressing the problem head-on, they're firing good groups of people.
in fairness, some of these folks are hacks (calvin watkins, i'm looking at you) that can be replaced by bots. but yeah, not a good look overall. emphasizing style over substance eventually leads to bad places.
I don't know Watkins well, but Ed Werder and Jayson Stark jump to mind as good, hard-working folks. There's others too. It's just strange to me their response to adversity.
he's the recently-hired houston beat writer. pretty bad writer, and really just a puppet for the organization. there are plenty of those. but you're right; no need to throw the baby out with the bath water. and not cutting any higher-ups is lame and expected.
wow, they let stein go? did not expect that. maybe i should have. anyway, he was one of the good ones.
The market changed pretty quickly. I wouldn't be surprised to see NBA salaries to drop in the future after the next media contract. I doubt the numbers are sustainable. That will be fun to watch teams implode that have horrible contracts.
Henry Abbott was one as well and to me he is definitely #1 in the most deserving to go. Been a Lakers/Kobe hater sense day 1
I watch Sportscenter once or twice a week for maybe 3-4 minutes. It used to be nightly viewing. There are many reasons ESPN is dying, but in the end, it's always the internet. I can go to their website or others and check scores and highlights. Their model of 10-15 years ago that forced people to sit and watch highlights of the Royals and Athletics in order to see a highlight they wanted to see are gone. Politics are also a bit of a problem. Most people tune into sports as an escape where they can see people compete in a controlled setting. They don't want to see politics and social issues with their sports. There is plenty of crap out there to get people upset. Sports are supposed to take you away from the daily crap you see.
Giving Jenner the Arthur Ashe Courage Award was an bad business move. I'm not trying to argue the social merits of it whatsoever. But the fact is they know a massive portion of their viewership isn't down with that sort of thing. In the end you are still a business and you need to be aware of what your political stances will do. You can argue the right and wrong of it, but in the end, I know people who stopped watching ESPN for that Jenner thing. They could have given it to a cancer survivor that came back to get a scholarship or something. There's a bunch of stories they could have picked that would have been deserving that wouldn't have alienated a massive chunk of their customers.