An excellent writeup of The Rise and Fall of ESPN, including all the different cable phases that most of us have lived through.

I believe that Travis is exceptionally smart. And he is business savvy. Personally, I think Travis learned watching Trump's 2016 campaign and incorporated a lot of that messaging into his platform to drive attention, positive or negative.

That's why I mockingly put a "trigger warning" in my OP. Some people can't get past the salesman to see the product.

Thanks for this, it's one of the most detailed analyses I've seen on the feud.

Iowaggie said:

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An excellent writeup of The Rise and Fall of ESPN, including all the different cable phases that most of us have lived through.

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Good stuff.

I've said this before, but Comcast's Xfinity service has done a good job of bundling streaming services with traditional cable in an easy-to-use portal, all accessible by voice control. To me, it's the best of both worlds.

EclipseAg said:

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Iowaggie said:

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An excellent writeup of The Rise and Fall of ESPN, including all the different cable phases that most of us have lived through.

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Good stuff.

I've said this before, but Comcast's Xfinity service has done a good job of bundling streaming services with traditional cable in an easy-to-use portal, all accessible by voice control. To me, it's the best of both worlds.

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The services who pivot to make things as accessible as possible will do well. But the ones who stick to the ancient method of contracts and costly cable-box equipment will go the way of Blockbuster.

I don't regret dropping DISH 5 years ago for streaming cable at all. No box, no contract, no added fees, and better picture quality. I was visiting family last weekend and their cable provider was of course, Spectrum...so no ESPN for the A&M game. No problem! I just pulled up my YouTubeTV app and watched the game on the iPad. Can take it with me wherever I go.

hph6203 said:

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Pro-tip. Don't start sentences with "One." It doesn't make you sound smart.

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Good thing my content is plenty smart to make up for it.

Xfinity/Comcast dropped Fox today.

Iowaggie said:

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Xfinity/Comcast dropped Fox today.

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This a local thing? I'm in Houston with Xfinity, have the Nebraska Colorado game on now

htxag09 said:

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Iowaggie said:

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Xfinity/Comcast dropped Fox today.

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This a local thing? I'm in Houston with Xfinity, have the Nebraska Colorado game on now

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Unsure, but it does seem to be a regional thing. I'm checking X and you can tell the fan bases that are missing out. However, it appears that some fans found the Spanish announcer version.

@Fox28_Spokane @Xfinity Figure out the contract dispute! It’s football season and the @Seahawks game is tomorrow. We need Fox back on the air immediately.

- Sincerely all Spokane area football fans!

— Brandanm (⛳️, 🏆) (@Brandanm10) September 9, 2023

Nothing better than watching Colorado-Nebraska football on a Saturday morning. In Spanish. On Fox Deportes. C'mon Xfinity. C'mon WHBQ in Memphis, and whoever owns you. Get it together. Muchas gracias.

— Tim Buckley (@buckleytim18) September 9, 2023

I seriously am about to drop @Xfinity… we pay way too much money to not get a major station like Fox… If I can’t watch college football or the NFL, what is the point? @steelers are on fox tomorrow 🤬🤬🤬

— Kim (@19lilbanjo) September 9, 2023

There's also this:

DIRECTV has been missing roughly 200 stations for 2 months in the biggest carriage dispute ever and it gets zero coverage in the national media. Spectrum, based in LA/NY, loses 26 channels and it’s the biggest story in TV.

— The TV Answer Man (@TVAnswerMan) September 9, 2023

Don't forget that a lot of this stuff can be received over the air for free. Watched the Aggies today, unfortunately, with rabbit ears.

Wrong thread

nm

htxag09 said:

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Just another point in this. Why the hell does espn still act like normal games are 3 hours as far as the guide and scheduling? I mean per the guide this Texas Alabama game is already over. Still 10 minutes left in the 4th

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Because the tracking and billing software has a really difficult time handling programming that crosses over a calendar day.

BIMS O1 said:

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If they didn't play 90 seconds of commercials for every minute of game coverage, the games would only last 3 hours.

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But then ESPN wouldn't be paying us $50M+ a year.

Madmarttigan said:

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Commercials are longer and worse than they've ever been, it's insane

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I'm just tired of the commercials being insanely loud.

BIMS O1 said:

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There has to be a way to do advertising without completely disrupting the flow of game coverage. Look at how golf has started doing a side "picture in picture" as an example. They are forcing so many ads in that the product less watchable.

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There absolutely is. PIP ads, sponsored uniforms, etc.

I still think it won't matter. ESPN's issue isn't that they don't know how to advertise effectively, it's that they have paid out so much money for control that it's getting harder to make it back up once the product hits the field. Their answer the past 10 years has been to simply take hits with the customer experience, which is only aggravating the issue with people not wanting to sit through the length they require to show all their sponsors. It's a cascading failure that is picking up speed unless something drastic is done.

I think the main thing is to cut any fluff out of the broadcasting side. I would also try to incorporate betting into watching ESPN.

Just to make this further Entertainment related, I can't help but think about The Morning Show (Season 3 starts Wednesday!) when this topic comes up. Billy Crudup pulls off his vision to start a streaming platform for the network only to have it flounder. It was more of a secondary story line on that show near the end of last season, but I'm interested to see how they play that out this season in light of real-world disruption happening right now.

Separately, we just switched from YTTV to Hulu Live a couple of weeks ago and the interface for Hulu Live when you have the ESPN+ addition is a chaotic nightmare. It took me several minutes to even find our game yesterday by manually scrolling forever to find it. Search wouldn't pull it up, my recording of it wouldn't play, and if selected from the live tv guide (which you can't get to from the interface!?) was showing the Notre Dame game.

I really do miss DTV. A simpler, but still tech forward time with superior picture quality over streaming. It's just too expensive. Something has to give in all of this and it will. And that might be me buying digital rabbit ears and cancelling live tv services over streaming. Literally, the only thing I watch live are sporting events and election nights.

YouBet said:

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Just to make this further Entertainment related, I can't help but think about The Morning Show (Season 3 starts Wednesday!) when this topic comes up. Billy Crudup pulls off his vision to start a streaming platform for the network only to have it flounder. It was more of a secondary story line on that show near the end of last season, but I'm interested to see how they play that out this season in light of real-world disruption happening right now.

Separately, we just switched from YTTV to Hulu Live a couple of weeks ago and the interface for Hulu Live when you have the ESPN+ addition is a chaotic nightmare. It took me several minutes to even find our game yesterday by manually scrolling forever to find it. Search wouldn't pull it up, my recording of it wouldn't play, and if selected from the live tv guide (which you can't get to from the interface!?) was showing the Notre Dame game.

I really do miss DTV. A simpler, but still tech forward time with superior picture quality over streaming. It's just too expensive. Something has to give in all of this and it will. And that might be me buying digital rabbit ears and cancelling live tv services over streaming. Literally, the only thing I watch live are sporting events and election nights.

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that's because the game was moved at the last minute due to ND getting delayed on ABC.

It was a similar nightmare on xifinity as somehow the guys ESPN package didn't include ESPN News. Just silly

maroon barchetta said:

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YouBet said:

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Just to make this further Entertainment related, I can't help but think about The Morning Show (Season 3 starts Wednesday!) when this topic comes up. Billy Crudup pulls off his vision to start a streaming platform for the network only to have it flounder. It was more of a secondary story line on that show near the end of last season, but I'm interested to see how they play that out this season in light of real-world disruption happening right now.

Separately, we just switched from YTTV to Hulu Live a couple of weeks ago and the interface for Hulu Live when you have the ESPN+ addition is a chaotic nightmare. It took me several minutes to even find our game yesterday by manually scrolling forever to find it. Search wouldn't pull it up, my recording of it wouldn't play, and if selected from the live tv guide (which you can't get to from the interface!?) was showing the Notre Dame game.

I really do miss DTV. A simpler, but still tech forward time with superior picture quality over streaming. It's just too expensive. Something has to give in all of this and it will. And that might be me buying digital rabbit ears and cancelling live tv services over streaming. Literally, the only thing I watch live are sporting events and election nights.

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Man.

You like being miserable, don't you.

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Yes, I must be a sadist.

Youtube TV (which I have) is just cable over broadband, but since they have lower overhead from traditional cable companies (ie they don't own or have to worry about cable lines, installs or satellites) they can be more competitive when negotiating with content providers.

Milwaukees Best Light said:

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If I could get the Astros and Rockets without buying 75 other channels too, it would be great.

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WTF MLB.TV insists on their ridiculous black out rules is beyond me. The best part is there is only a single cable subscriber that has Bally sports to watch the Royals. If you don't have spectrum TV, you can't watch.

Just get MLB.TV and a VPN. I did this a few years ago when the Royals were still good and it worked great.

agracer said:

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Milwaukees Best Light said:

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If I could get the Astros and Rockets without buying 75 other channels too, it would be great.

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WTF MLB.TV insists on their ridiculous black out rules is beyond me. The best part is there is only a single cable subscriber that has Bally sports to watch the Royals. If you don't have spectrum TV, you can't watch.

Just get MLB.TV and a VPN. I did this a few years ago when the Royals were still good and it worked great.

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The blackout rules are there because the regional sports networks pay A LOT of money to the teams for exclusivity.

FtWorthHorn said:

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MW03 said:

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When (not "if" according to Travis) ESPN loses this battle, it will be 10x as expensive to watch sports,

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Isn't the more likely outcome that the amounts the leagues get paid fall dramatically?

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It depends, is the demand for sports consumption still there? If so some service will pick it up with some sort of new bundling model.

However I do wonder if there is as much interest in younger folks with sports. My kids don't really watch much sports at all. At their age I was already hooked.

Frok said:

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FtWorthHorn said:

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MW03 said:

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When (not "if" according to Travis) ESPN loses this battle, it will be 10x as expensive to watch sports,

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Isn't the more likely outcome that the amounts the leagues get paid fall dramatically?

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It depends, is the demand for sports consumption still there? If so some service will pick it up with some sort of new bundling model.

However I do wonder if there is as much interest in younger folks with sports. My kids don't really watch much sports at all. At their age I was already hooked.

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Were the games taking 4.5 hours when you were that age?

Disney and Charter have reportedly reached a deal to end their week-long carriage dispute.

The agreement will restore ESPN and other channels to nearly 15 million subscribers.https://t.co/8FVqpSB3QN pic.twitter.com/hhYo6f9dEh

— Front Office Sports (@FOS) September 11, 2023