I'm going to poor out one for Andy Katz.
Say Goodbye to those ESPN Personalities Ya'll Love So Much: Official ESPN Layoffs Thread
- Thread starter PortCityProphet
- Start date
Wayment
. If they are still paying these people, why are they "cutting them? How does that cut costs?
They sound like @jadillac and other dudes that complain about music videos not being on TV anymore
Lettuce be real... all these firing does not solve their issues or even begin to
This is just to show investors and officers that they have a plan
This is just to show investors and officers that they have a plan
Tide Run This
Veteran
Yeah they let they hard on for more football kill them that mnf deal is all time WOAT and the stupid playoff are examples of how to burn money fast. Outside of the 1st playoff shyt has been a complete disaster u need actual star power yearly they need to rig it into getting USC Michigan OSU Alabama or FSU this season for that shyt to draw them NYE fantasies blew up in face
ESPN and NBCSN gain homes in new Nielsen estimates, FS1 and ESPN2 lose homes
This is a change in direction for ESPN in Nielsen coverage estimates, and may be about more streaming households being included.
The latest Nielsen household estimates are good news for ESPN (well, at least the main network) and great news for NBCSN, but not so good for FS1 and ESPN2. Sports Business Daily’s Austin Karp has the numbers for May:
The numbers for April don’t seem to have come out anywhere, but we know from Sports TV Ratings’ March 7 piece on the March estimates that ESPN was in 87,437,000 homes then (422,000 less than they were in February) and FS1 was in 84,724,000 homes then (565,000 less than in February). For May at least, ESPN reversed the trend of decline, and that may have to do with more streaming services (such as SlingTV, Playstation Vue, and DirecTV Now) being counted.
Nielsen only had an estimated 37 of those households in its sample in March (up from six in January), a small fraction of its around 40,000 overall households. That Sports TV Ratings piece said “Nielsen plans to grow the alternate MPVD services (streaming services like SlingTV, Vue, DirecTV Now) participation rapidly over the next 6 months.” Thus, if that growth of streaming services on their panel has continued, that could explain the ESPN uptick.
As for NBCSN, that growth looks really impressive, but it’s part of a larger trend. They signed a February placement deal with DirecTV to add a reported 3 million subscribers to their footprint, but only gained 1.3 million in the March estimates. So this appears to be still Nielsen’s estimates catching up to that deal (although it may also include some people upgrading their package to get NBCSN ahead of the NHL playoffs, arguably the most relevant time of year for that channel). NBCSN is certainly close to FS1 now though (83,790,000 subscribers in March versus 84,159,000), and may have even passed them.
The ESPN2 trend is also interesting. They lost 382,000 subscribers from February to March, dropping to 87,349,000, but that was still very close to the main ESPN network. To see them continue to trend down while the main network actually adds subscribers is a further suggestion that things are getting harder for ESPN’s alternate channels. Of course, the+40,000 and -70,000 numbers here are quite small compared to ones that we’ve seen before, and they could be just noise. But it’s certainly interesting to see main ESPN gain subscribers in these estimates instead of losing them for a change, and that may have a lot to do with further counting of streaming services.
This is a change in direction for ESPN in Nielsen coverage estimates, and may be about more streaming households being included.
The latest Nielsen household estimates are good news for ESPN (well, at least the main network) and great news for NBCSN, but not so good for FS1 and ESPN2. Sports Business Daily’s Austin Karp has the numbers for May:
The numbers for April don’t seem to have come out anywhere, but we know from Sports TV Ratings’ March 7 piece on the March estimates that ESPN was in 87,437,000 homes then (422,000 less than they were in February) and FS1 was in 84,724,000 homes then (565,000 less than in February). For May at least, ESPN reversed the trend of decline, and that may have to do with more streaming services (such as SlingTV, Playstation Vue, and DirecTV Now) being counted.
Nielsen only had an estimated 37 of those households in its sample in March (up from six in January), a small fraction of its around 40,000 overall households. That Sports TV Ratings piece said “Nielsen plans to grow the alternate MPVD services (streaming services like SlingTV, Vue, DirecTV Now) participation rapidly over the next 6 months.” Thus, if that growth of streaming services on their panel has continued, that could explain the ESPN uptick.
As for NBCSN, that growth looks really impressive, but it’s part of a larger trend. They signed a February placement deal with DirecTV to add a reported 3 million subscribers to their footprint, but only gained 1.3 million in the March estimates. So this appears to be still Nielsen’s estimates catching up to that deal (although it may also include some people upgrading their package to get NBCSN ahead of the NHL playoffs, arguably the most relevant time of year for that channel). NBCSN is certainly close to FS1 now though (83,790,000 subscribers in March versus 84,159,000), and may have even passed them.
The ESPN2 trend is also interesting. They lost 382,000 subscribers from February to March, dropping to 87,349,000, but that was still very close to the main ESPN network. To see them continue to trend down while the main network actually adds subscribers is a further suggestion that things are getting harder for ESPN’s alternate channels. Of course, the+40,000 and -70,000 numbers here are quite small compared to ones that we’ve seen before, and they could be just noise. But it’s certainly interesting to see main ESPN gain subscribers in these estimates instead of losing them for a change, and that may have a lot to do with further counting of streaming services.
Don't forget overpaying for the shyt product that is the NBA
Where there is seriously no point in keeping up with the regular season when the players don't even care about it
They should've made the NBA improve their product before re upping that deal
Change the HC in the playoffs to 3-2-3 and shorten the season to 70 games
Instead they gave they gave the NBA 24 billion and the only improvement they got was a Saturday night prime time game
ShoryukenHaduken
All Star
Tough trend for talentWayment
i saw it on hoopshype and took a look at the link posted.... as for if its gonna save em money in the long run this isnt gonna do jack shyt for em since its a drop in the bucket compared to those sports right fees costs.
stein and a few basketball ppl got cut just based off woj coming over since woj HATES stein.
rest of em is just trimming the fat im sure the bigger ones who got cut have no compete clauses and espn is willing to keep em off tb for a rival network
ahomeplateslugger
Superstar
it looks like ESPN is focusing their company on the NBA, NFL and NCAAF, which makes sense because they're gonna be bidding with tech companies like Amazon, Facebook and Netflix on rights to air these games so will need to cut dead weight. ESPN is gonna be in a tough position once their contracts are up.
from my understanding and what ppl have said, ESPN will honor the contract and pay them until they get another job.
so mark stein will continue to still get paid but once he signs a contract with another company, ESPN will not have to pay him anymore. it's probably what ESPN wants since he's getting paid a lot, which sucks form ark stein because he's not gonna get paid as much.
from my understanding and what ppl have said, ESPN will honor the contract and pay them until they get another job.
so mark stein will continue to still get paid but once he signs a contract with another company, ESPN will not have to pay him anymore. it's probably what ESPN wants since he's getting paid a lot, which sucks form ark stein because he's not gonna get paid as much.
ShoryukenHaduken
All Star
i thought ppl said ryan clark got cut
just saw him on espn guess breh took that paycut....
just saw him on espn guess breh took that paycut....
I didn't see any word of that, doubt Clark gets cut they were grooming this dude to be a media personality even while he was still playing. Guys like Hodge and Jaws make sense, they're not on TV as much as they used to be and that NFL Matchup show has been buried to garbage time slots.i thought ppl said ryan clark got cut
dora_da_destroyer
Master Baker
kelvin as in marcellus and kelvin? that show went to shyt with him/when max leftAs long as the bro Kelvin is safe I'm coolJalen and Jacoby can go
Non-compete clauses and lengthy contracts could make life difficult for some laid off by ESPN
It looks like ESPN may be paying a lot of people not to work.
The reverberations and aftershocks of ESPN’s triple digit talent layoffs are still being felt across the industry. As the dust settles, we’re beginning to learn more about just how far ESPN was willing to go in culling their payroll.
According to a report from Sports Business Journal, multiple ESPN employees had to take over a 50% pay cut in order to ensure that they were not among the casualties in ESPN’s massive round of layoffs.
In some cases, surprisingly, SBJ reports that there were some amongst the layoffs that had over five years remaining on their deals. And in those deals, non-compete clauses could make it difficult for some laid off to get back in the game:
ESPN agreed to pay out full contracts, which in some cases lasted more than five years. Several reporters offered to continue working through their contracts without incurring expenses, but they were told they couldn’t.
Talent that had contracts were told that they were still employees of ESPN on payroll, but they no longer worked for the company. Many have non-compete clauses in their deals, which means they can’t report their beats, even on social media, until their contracts end or they are released. In order to get around the non-compete clauses, they would have to report on entirely different beats than the ones they spent years developing at ESPN.
What already had been a rough market for on-air talent became a lot rougher.
If this was truly a cost-cutting measure, it’s difficult to make sense out of cutting someone who has so much time left on their contract… and being willing to pay them to do nothing. Maybe ESPN’s hope is that the talent would void the contract to want to go work elsewhere, otherwise those individuals would have to begin developing entirely different skill sets in order to find a new job while their contract expired. Given the majority of ESPN’s layoffs were writers and reporters that worked in specific sports, that could be exceedingly difficult.
There’s worse things in life one could do than getting paid to sit at home, but it shows the complicated reality of these layoffs. For those laid off that would have many years left on their deals, it’s hard to fathom why ESPN would rather pay someone not to work than to keep producing quality content for them.
While rising rights fees and cord cutting are the major reasons why ESPN was in this predicament, it’s also noteworthy from a talent perspective that ESPN might have overpaid to keep some of these folks in Bristol in the first place and prevent them from going to one of the many new competitors on the marketplace.
“It’s rare that you see such a huge shift in the marketplace for talent,” said Jim Miller, author of best-selling books on ESPN and CAA.
It also marks a stark difference from four years ago. That was soon after NBC Sports rebranded its sports channel to NBC Sports Network and FS1 launched. Throw in CBS Sports Network and all the league-owned channels, and the market for on-air talent soared. Wanting to keep people from going to the rival networks, ESPN, in particular, was generous about paying to keep its talent roster intact.
“ESPN didn’t want to create the perception that the new kid on the block in FS1 was a good place to go,” Miller said. “ESPN paid extraordinary increases in new contracts because FS1 expressed interest.”
The proliferation of new sports networks (specifically FS1) would also make much more sense as to why there would be such non-compete clauses in ESPN contracts. FS1 has already hired so many former ESPN employees that it’s hard to keep track of them all. And certainly ESPN wouldn’t want to see all of their new competitors staffed by people that they helped turn into household names.
Perhaps you can make the argument that the one place FS1 has had the biggest impact on ESPN has been on the personnel side of things. FS1 has already hired a huge number of former ESPN personalities to be the centerpiece of their Embrace Debate 2.0 movement. And even though Bristol has been focused on cost-cutting, they were willing to splash some major cash for the likes of Skip Bayless before ultimately being outbid by the folks in Los Angeles. While that hasn’t translated into any type of significant ratings success for FS1, it’s obviously put ESPN in a bind.
Increased cost due to rising competition, soaring rights fees, and shrinking revenues are not a great recipe for any network and it helps explain why ESPN was suddenly in the position they found themselves in last week. But now with ESPN making their cuts and FS1 seemingly only willing to spend big bucks on antagonists, the question turns to what could be next for those laid off by ESPN in the current economical environment.
It looks like ESPN may be paying a lot of people not to work.
The reverberations and aftershocks of ESPN’s triple digit talent layoffs are still being felt across the industry. As the dust settles, we’re beginning to learn more about just how far ESPN was willing to go in culling their payroll.
According to a report from Sports Business Journal, multiple ESPN employees had to take over a 50% pay cut in order to ensure that they were not among the casualties in ESPN’s massive round of layoffs.
In some cases, surprisingly, SBJ reports that there were some amongst the layoffs that had over five years remaining on their deals. And in those deals, non-compete clauses could make it difficult for some laid off to get back in the game:
ESPN agreed to pay out full contracts, which in some cases lasted more than five years. Several reporters offered to continue working through their contracts without incurring expenses, but they were told they couldn’t.
Talent that had contracts were told that they were still employees of ESPN on payroll, but they no longer worked for the company. Many have non-compete clauses in their deals, which means they can’t report their beats, even on social media, until their contracts end or they are released. In order to get around the non-compete clauses, they would have to report on entirely different beats than the ones they spent years developing at ESPN.
What already had been a rough market for on-air talent became a lot rougher.
If this was truly a cost-cutting measure, it’s difficult to make sense out of cutting someone who has so much time left on their contract… and being willing to pay them to do nothing. Maybe ESPN’s hope is that the talent would void the contract to want to go work elsewhere, otherwise those individuals would have to begin developing entirely different skill sets in order to find a new job while their contract expired. Given the majority of ESPN’s layoffs were writers and reporters that worked in specific sports, that could be exceedingly difficult.
There’s worse things in life one could do than getting paid to sit at home, but it shows the complicated reality of these layoffs. For those laid off that would have many years left on their deals, it’s hard to fathom why ESPN would rather pay someone not to work than to keep producing quality content for them.
While rising rights fees and cord cutting are the major reasons why ESPN was in this predicament, it’s also noteworthy from a talent perspective that ESPN might have overpaid to keep some of these folks in Bristol in the first place and prevent them from going to one of the many new competitors on the marketplace.
“It’s rare that you see such a huge shift in the marketplace for talent,” said Jim Miller, author of best-selling books on ESPN and CAA.
It also marks a stark difference from four years ago. That was soon after NBC Sports rebranded its sports channel to NBC Sports Network and FS1 launched. Throw in CBS Sports Network and all the league-owned channels, and the market for on-air talent soared. Wanting to keep people from going to the rival networks, ESPN, in particular, was generous about paying to keep its talent roster intact.
“ESPN didn’t want to create the perception that the new kid on the block in FS1 was a good place to go,” Miller said. “ESPN paid extraordinary increases in new contracts because FS1 expressed interest.”
The proliferation of new sports networks (specifically FS1) would also make much more sense as to why there would be such non-compete clauses in ESPN contracts. FS1 has already hired so many former ESPN employees that it’s hard to keep track of them all. And certainly ESPN wouldn’t want to see all of their new competitors staffed by people that they helped turn into household names.
Perhaps you can make the argument that the one place FS1 has had the biggest impact on ESPN has been on the personnel side of things. FS1 has already hired a huge number of former ESPN personalities to be the centerpiece of their Embrace Debate 2.0 movement. And even though Bristol has been focused on cost-cutting, they were willing to splash some major cash for the likes of Skip Bayless before ultimately being outbid by the folks in Los Angeles. While that hasn’t translated into any type of significant ratings success for FS1, it’s obviously put ESPN in a bind.
Increased cost due to rising competition, soaring rights fees, and shrinking revenues are not a great recipe for any network and it helps explain why ESPN was suddenly in the position they found themselves in last week. But now with ESPN making their cuts and FS1 seemingly only willing to spend big bucks on antagonists, the question turns to what could be next for those laid off by ESPN in the current economical environment.