Unless there's a game, I literally never watch ESPN now.
The personalities were good when it was a small part of the overall presentation.
Craig Kilborn and Stuart Scott were just naturally allowing their personalities to shine thru in their broadcasts. But it was never a forced gimmick the way it is with the screaming SAS or the pugnacious Skip Bayless.
When you watched ESPN, you just wanted the highlights.
Now ESPN is just the Cable News of sports, which is to say opinion shows and Cola Wars (I think X team is better. I think Y team is better. Thank you, that's all the time we have. See you next time)
That's the downfall of their product.
But that's not the reason for the cuts. They just negotiated terrible contracts with the NFL and NBA.
ESPN will survive and will probably renegotiate better contracts in the future. But it'll never be a particularly "watchable" channel.
Not to me, anyway.