Sounds like there will be a lockout during the 2024-25 season. The players aren't going to want to give up those yuge salaries and the owners aren't going to want to give up more than 50% of the revenue. And that will be the season we're the favorite to win the championship. :MARIS61:
NFL also seein a significant drop in viewership, IMO sports largesse/viewership/interest has peaked and a long term downtrend has begun. People are IMO getting tired of watching what has become a spectacle of overlong games, and overpaid prima donna athletes who are often not very likeable. Enjoy it now boys because the peak is here
They have to make all these cuts to make room for Woj haha. http://ftw.usatoday.com/2017/02/woj-espn-vertical-adrian-wojnarowski-nba-reporter
It's not hard to understand why, though. The internet has dramatically changed all manners of news delivery. The current thinking is, you have to keep people engaged 24/7, otherwise they'll go somewhere else and get their breaking news. Unfortunately, that leads ESPN to providing more fluff than substance.
That and I like I alluded to in another post, every sport has its own cable channel that has time to show a lot more extensive highlights. Hell every college conference even has it's own station that play provides highlights and commentary. ESPN can't compete with all of them on a nightly basis.
Please dump Berman and Vitale. All the bobble heads on the NFL preview show ought to be canned too. ESPN is not the same and has gotten to be a manly version of Bravo. SRV ...would agree.
Because of ESPN's cutbacks, I'll probably lose around $10,000 this year. They are no longer using my position for soccer games on the road. They are replacing us with full time employees back in Bristol. I'm one of the lucky ones who doesn't actually work for ESPN that much. Still hurts, especially during my off season.
You know you are absolutely right and great comparison. The problem is tryign to fix things that arent broken so you can get that last 1% potential of viewer base rather than just being content with a superb product and just leave it at that. When MTV first came out it was the best thing on the Tube. Remember Midnight Metal? Sunday Hip Hop? Man it was the best. Then they tried to make it better. Now it completely suck and Paladia and VH-1 are fare superior. The same has happened to ESPN. They had th best product in sports. Why did they need to change it or try to improve it? SC was the shit. It was my half hour news report from the previous day for all the highlights I missed. Now its just a mish mosh of crap story lines. The same problem exists in many facets of our society and I understand that it is instinct to an extent to try to improv what is, but sometimes there is no way to improve and we must just be content with what things are.
That sucks man. So you have more than one gig? I kinda just assumed 82 games was plenty and the rest was spent with family?? Your taxes mustg be hell to figure out because aren't you taxed based on the state you worked in and not where you reside? So you have 50... well 48 w2's every year and then one from Canada for Toronto games right?
It's all about on demand content now. It's why Netflix and Prime video are killing this new game. ESPN and Turner invested in the one thing that has to be on live, and not be on demand: live sports. And clearly the new demographic doesn't care much about it.
I still love NBA on TNT, tune in whenever I can, and I don't even care about any team outside the Blazers. Part of that is because Ernie and the rest of those guys (not shaq) are entertaining (not informative, I take them for what they are.) ESPN doesn't have any likeable talent. Not in the NBA department, and especially not in the NFL department. They all suck. Literally, all of them. And I agree about looking forward to the NFLs demise. I live in San Diego. Enough said lol.
I have an accountant do my taxes, they are nuts. Now that I'm a little more established, I'll only work for 6 or 7 companies a year. Used to be 10-15 when I was starting out. I have an accountant do my taxes. Way to confusing. No way I'd be able to do them myself. Last summer Brazil. This summer I'll be working in London, Kazakhstan. So I just let the pros handle it. As far as working just the 82 games, that's only 5 1/2 months. I guess I could work just half a year, because of all the travel. But a mortgage, 2 car payments and a wife and 2 growing kids costs a lot of money FAMS. Along those lines, about 2 years ago, I started saying no to some work for the first time. As a freelancer, you only make money when they call, so you don't want to piss anybody off by saying no all the time. But I'm pretty established, so they are cool with it, just can't turn too many companies down.
I loved Palladia. Past tense. It was exactly what I always wanted MTV to be. But MTV bought Palladia last year and renamed it MTVLive or somesuch. Then they tweaked it. Fixed something that wasn't broken. It isn't nearly as good. Fuck you MTV.
