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Au revoir, perhaps only temporarily, to Ted Miller - Printable Version

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Re: Au revoir, perhaps only temporarily, to Ted Miller - CardinalSagehen - 04-26-2017

I'll miss Miller's "Friday Mailbag" banter, which not only reflected his insight into football but also his general knowledge, wit and ability to relate to people.  Miller wasn't afraid to throw in clever references to literature and pop culture that I sometimes failed to catch but always appreciated.  There's only so many ways that you can write a boring ESPN listicle assignment, and he made an effort to keep it colorful most of the time. 

As for Lombardi, I just saw the bad news about him getting sacked, too.  He definitely had the most timely takes on Stanford football for the last couple seasons. 

Very sorry to see them go... but hey, there's always Jon Wilner :'( 



Re: Au revoir, perhaps only temporarily, to Ted Miller - needle - 04-26-2017

Damn it. I wish Lombardi well in all his future endeavors. Hopefully he'll catch on somewhere in the Bay Area and continue to report on Stanford. But there's no guarantee that will happen.

Not a good day.

Re: Au revoir, perhaps only temporarily, to Ted Miller - 2006alum - 04-26-2017

Ugh. Didn't love Lombardi, but he did provide good scoops, and am (less) sorry to see him go too. At this rate, I'm not sure what is left to make ESPN Insider worth subscribing to, which means I'll probably cancel, which will also drop my ESPN Magazine subscription and reduce their subscriber count for ad sales purposes. At a certain point, their "business decision" becomes counterproductive. I'm a happy cord cutter but was happy to pay a decent chunk of change for their online product. Not sure what I'm paying for now.

Re: Au revoir, perhaps only temporarily, to Ted Miller - dabigv13 - 04-26-2017

ESPN is finding that live sports are all that people want from them.  People don't need Sportscenter for highlights anymore, and I think they're weary of talking heads shows too.

Shame though, a lot of talented people lost their jobs. Hard to see where they all go, but I will definitely miss Miller, hope he finds a good spot somewhere.

Re: Au revoir, perhaps only temporarily, to Ted Miller - CTcard - 04-26-2017

(04-26-2017, 06:07 PM)dabigv link Wrote:ESPN is finding that live sports are all that people want from them.  People don't need Sportscenter for highlights anymore, and I think they're weary of talking heads shows too.

Well, the story I heard was that they were specifically jettisoning highlight oriented shows and any kind of reporting specifically for talking head shows.

On the other hand, I have no idea if that is really true - been busy today and haven't seen any list of casulaties other than in this thread.

Re: Au revoir, perhaps only temporarily, to Ted Miller - winflop - 04-26-2017

Bonagura is the Last of the Mohicans - Miller, Jennings, and Lombardi all sent packing.

ESPN also fired its entire NHL team in the middle of playoffs - the ONLY time most people even pay attention to hockey.

Re: Au revoir, perhaps only temporarily, to Ted Miller - stupac2 - 04-27-2017

(04-26-2017, 06:07 PM)dabigv link Wrote:ESPN is finding that live sports are all that people want from them.  People don't need Sportscenter for highlights anymore, and I think they're weary of talking heads shows too.

Shame though, a lot of talented people lost their jobs. Hard to see where they all go, but I will definitely miss Miller, hope he finds a good spot somewhere.

I dunno, college football is one of their brobdingnagian draws, but who is going to be producing content for them now? Are they doubling down on TV? It seems like they axed nearly everyone who wrote regular content for the website. If the problem is "not enough people are watching on TV" then killing off one of the main avenues for people who DON'T watch TV to get interested in seems... short-sighted.

Re: Au revoir, perhaps only temporarily, to Ted Miller - FarmBoy - 04-27-2017

Does the erosion of the the ESPN model forebode a change in the business model for college football programs? If ESPN and others can't make money on the massive broadcasting deals they sign, then conferences will get less money. Which could result in lower coaches' salaries, perks for athletes, amenities, etc. Or will the conferences generate money in more direct to consumer models and make as much or more? Or do football programs all get funded by wealthy donors?



Does Lee Corso still have a job at ESPN? - Redrum - 04-27-2017

I'll know they are serious about cutting costs when he goes.  Maybe any one of the fired journalists offered more to fans and subscribers than Corso does with his clown act.  Used to be entertaining if not enlightening.  Now?  More and more cringe-worthy.  I'd trade any number of those cut journalists that could be covered by Corso's salary. Even if its only one or two.

Re: Au revoir, perhaps only temporarily, to Ted Miller - washingtonismoney - 04-27-2017

The decision is odd for ESPN in that...

The labor costs from the firings really couldn't have been so great. Let's say the average labor costs of the 100 being laid odd was $120,000. That's $12 million. But the network's subscriber fees fell, i believe, by 62 million last quarter or year or whatever. The point is the salaries pale in comparison to the drops in revenue and the rights fees. They cannot cut their way to success.

Re: Au revoir, perhaps only temporarily, to Ted Miller - donkey687 - 04-27-2017

(04-27-2017, 09:36 AM)washingtonismoney link Wrote:The decision is odd for ESPN in that...

The labor costs from the firings really couldn't have been so great. Let's say the average labor costs of the 100 being laid odd was $120,000. That's $12 million. But the network's subscriber fees fell, i believe, by 62 million last quarter or year or whatever. The point is the salaries pale in comparison to the drops in revenue and the rights fees. They cannot cut their way to success.

Disney is a public company and in every analyst call, ESPN's decline gets the most attention.  Investors are concerned and management has to do something so even if it is a drop in the bucket, it is something they need to do so they can say they are taking action.

Re: Au revoir, perhaps only temporarily, to Ted Miller - DC 86 - 04-27-2017

(04-27-2017, 09:41 AM)donkey687 link Wrote:[quote author=washingtonismoney link=topic=16831.msg192382#msg192382 date=1493310984]
The decision is odd for ESPN in that...

The labor costs from the firings really couldn't have been so great. Let's say the average labor costs of the 100 being laid odd was $120,000. That's $12 million. But the network's subscriber fees fell, i believe, by 62 million last quarter or year or whatever. The point is the salaries pale in comparison to the drops in revenue and the rights fees. They cannot cut their way to success.

Disney is a public company and in every analyst call, ESPN's decline gets the most attention.  Investors are concerned and management has to do something so even if it is a drop in the bucket, it is something they need to do so they can say they are taking action.
[/quote]

I would be interested in the source of the $62 mm number, according to multiple sources ESPN has steadily been losing ~ 3 million subscribers per year (although they did have one single month last year where they lost over 600,000 subscribers), and their average subsriber fee is $7.21, so their annual decline in revenues is closer to $22 mm. Regarding labor costs it's reasonable to estimate that overhead associated with each employee in many of those roles (which involve extensive travel) is easily equal/higher to their salaries/benefits, which themselves are likely to be higher than $10k/month.

Another factor from a financial statements standpoint is that most of those laid off had long term contracts (some with years to go) so ESPN can aggregate all these obligations into a one time non-recurring expense which will also be perceived positively by investors and analysts.

This massive layoff doesn't solve ESPN's long term business model issues related to cord cutting and being locked into expensive rights fees, but the short term financial impact and benefit is real, it's not just cosmetics. I agree that they can't cut their way to success but this layoff does have a material impact which will keep the analysts at bay while they redefine their strategy.

Re: Au revoir, perhaps only temporarily, to Ted Miller - burger - 04-27-2017

I agree that ESPN can't fire their way to profitability given the long-term trends in subscriber numbers (down from over 100 million homes some time ago to ~87 million today according to NPR).  Yesterday, NPR mentioned that ESPN will be launching a direct subscription service like HBO Go.  But, according to the reporter, the service will only have ESPN's second-tier games, not the national games on the flagship stations (ESPN and ESPN2, I assume).  That strikes me as moronic.  Why should I pay XX dollars a month to get ESPN3 castoff games?  Yeah, that might get you some Stanford MBB games and maybe a football game now and then, but that's not going to make many sports fans decide to pony up the cash, will it?

I've never understood why the sports leagues/networks don't follow MLB's model and make games available to stream at a reasonable cost on a monthly basis, with no long-term commitment.  You can see almost every MLB game for $20 a month on any device (a season-long package is cheaper, and there are sales now and then that bring the price down more).  There's another MLB package available just on phones for a ridiculously cheap $3 a month.  Why hasn't ESPN come up with something similar for <insert your favorite sport here>?  The NPR report I saw said that ESPN gets $7 a month per cable subscriber.  Surely they could come up with a per-season or per-game set of streaming packages that would recapture that amount or more from some of the cord cutters.  I'm a cord cutter, and I would happily pay a reasonable amount for individual MBB/football games or a package of games.  I think that there is a pile of money waiting to be made in PPV streaming, but no one outside of MLB is taking advantage.

Re: Au revoir, perhaps only temporarily, to Ted Miller - dabigv13 - 04-27-2017

What value is ESPN adding that the league/school/team can't provide? Commentators/analysis, maybe. Perhaps reach and technology, but a league/school/team could probably get that figured out like MLB has, and those costs are only going down.

So ESPN could do a streaming service, but that would undercut their standard business model, and once their rights agreement is up, a league/school/team would probably just do it themselves for cheaper.

ESPN in a tough spot. They'll be around for some time yet, but I don't think their business is going to be growing.

Re: Au revoir, perhaps only temporarily, to Ted Miller - OutsiderFan - 04-27-2017

A couple quick points here:

1. ESPN is still a brobdingnagian business, no matter what
2. The cuts don't address structural issues; they are akin to cutting PBS to address the US Budget Deficit

I know the inclination of people reacting to these layoffs is to say "better times are ahead" or "they will land on their feet,"  but in this case, I'm not so sure, not if those let go want to be sports reporters.  Look at what has happened to reporting in general.  Local sports coverage has really eroded.  ESPN was kind of the safe harbor for sports reporters.  Now even that harbor has been wiped out.  Few of these people will be re-hired at the smaller regional sports networks because they too are under the same pressures as ESPN.

Look at CSN.  Jaymee Sire started out there several years ago, then eventually "moved up" to ESPN, where she hosted the morning Sports Center.  She was among the cuts.  She isn't going back to CSN, not because she couldn't be hired there, but because that job doesn't exist any more either.  And it's even worse for guys like Miller and Lombardi. 

Where are writer reporters to go?  Who's going to hire them?  Nobody wants to pay for content, and it's virtually impossible to generate meaningful revenue from advertising online unless you have a gigantic audience.  ESPN allowed coverage of sports that otherwise wouldn't happen, by sort of subsidizing it, in the interest of providing fans information to keep them interested.  Without that glue, without that content, the sports won't seem as important and interest could erode.

A few months ago ESPN announced is was cutting their Sunday morning show "The Sports Reporters."  I guess that should have been read as a symbolic gesture that sports reporting just isn't very important any more.



Re: Au revoir, perhaps only temporarily, to Ted Miller - fullmetal - 04-27-2017

If you offer too much choice, you're going to get a subset of the population who will all go watch the game at a friend's place and chip in for the cost of the game.  At some point up the bundling tree, the luxury of choice will convince those consumers to each get their own subscriptions to a vast number of games for personal convenience/choice.

Perhaps conference-level bundling is the way to go.

Personally, I have no cable, netflix, or hulu.  I just watch Stanford sports at sports bars...or in person :)

As for where the recently laid-off reporters will go, I agree with OutsiderFan that the transition will not be easy.  ESPN's layoffs were an early nod to recurring slashing recurring costs of a changing business model.  The implication is that smaller sports networks will face the same challenges soon if not already, and that's what makes the transition for those reporters more difficult.

Re: Au revoir, perhaps only temporarily, to Ted Miller - 2006alum - 04-27-2017

(04-27-2017, 11:38 AM)OutsiderFan link Wrote:I know the inclination of people reacting to these layoffs is to say "better times are ahead" or "they will land on their feet,"  but in this case, I'm not so sure, not if those let go want to be sports reporters. . . .

Where are writer reporters to go?  Who's going to hire them?  Nobody wants to pay for content, and it's virtually impossible to generate meaningful revenue from advertising online unless you have a gigantic audience.  ESPN allowed coverage of sports that otherwise wouldn't happen, by sort of subsidizing it, in the interest of providing fans information to keep them interested.  Without that glue, without that content, the sports won't seem as important and interest could erode.
As much as it pains me to +1 something this depressing, I think you're spot on. ESPN was bloated because it could afford to be - some number of cable subscribers were effectively giving them free money for something they didn't want. It's a shame because to be honest, I enjoyed the reporting on ESPN.com more than everything but a handful of sports and teams they show on the cable channels. 22/24 hours of ESPN is stuff I have no interest in. Then again, I suspect TheCardBoard has an above-average number of people willing to pay for thoughtful content...

And while I'm at it, thank you all for providing it for me for free! For my money, TheCardBoard >>> ESPN Insider.

Re: Au revoir, perhaps only temporarily, to Ted Miller - Phogge - 04-27-2017

Never was a big fan of ESPN. Even when I was shooting for E60 I couldn't watch. If you think that the WS of poker was boring check out the production values then and now. OTL is the net's best show. Better producers and a great host in BL. I only watch live golf, Stanford football on the road and the Giants. The Giants production values are first rate thanks to the great and extremely cocky director Lynch and Jeff Kuiper. I like the team of Herbie and whomever on Sat nite FB and I preferred the British Open on ESPN. True is if they went off the air I wouldn't miss ESPN. There is much better programming on HBO, Showtime and the Golf Channel. Plus I still harbor a grudge over ESPN camera rates. Way below IATSE rates.

Re: Au revoir, perhaps only temporarily, to Ted Miller - BostonCard - 04-27-2017

Looks like Lombardi landed at the pac-12 nets.

https://pac-12.com/article/2017/04/27/2017-nfl-draft-first-round_stanford-solomon-thomas-picked-no-3-overall

Re: Au revoir, perhaps only temporarily, to Ted Miller - JJJ - 04-27-2017

(04-27-2017, 06:12 PM)Boston Card link Wrote:Looks like Lombardi landed at the pac-12 nets.

https://pac-12.com/article/2017/04/27/2017-nfl-draft-first-round_stanford-solomon-thomas-picked-no-3-overall

Whew. Good for him.