Deep Impact

17 Replies to “Deep Impact”

1. ESPN got Kaepernicked. Take a knee, boys! Take the rest of the alphabet media trash with you.

2. Awesome.
   At some point, the creeping fascism of leftwing ABCDEFG diversity had to hit the wall, and hard. Couldn’t happen to a better bunch of twits than ESPN

3. Second that motion.
   Good riddance.

4. Politics played a role but it is a small one.
   Technology – streaming and pvr and competitors like MLB networks had a far greater impact. Couple that with some serious overlays for the rights to some content.
   It is foolish to frame it In a political context.

5. (75 Years earlier)
   The Enemy Below:
   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQpUorRv804

6. People watched sports in part because it was devoid of politics which – thanks to the left – has now infected and intruded upon on every other segment of people’s lives. ESPN ruined that one last refuge and they are now paying the price. Good.

7. Most of the younger folk I know use only streaming services and do not have cable. The future for service providers is bright, less so for content providers.
   Captcha is “Extra” “Lance”.

8. If the writers and broadcasters are injecting politics into the mix then maybe they are bad at their jobs.

9. So by compensating for the 16% loss in customers they’re essentially ending hockey coverage? Smart corporate strategy… Like the Titanic’s Captain firing “scuttling charges” to finish off the iceberg damage.

10. “Politics played a role but it is a small one.”
    Wrong. If you piss off your customers, they will seek alternatives. This applies to basically everything – from restaurants to sports.
    Technology has given us choices.

11. Sports are reality TV played in real time. Nobody watches for a political message. They want to see the car crash or the bull rider getting gored.
    I look for the athletes who have a political message to now tone it down. The cable dinosaur can’t take any more controversy.

12. ESPN has simply been mimicking NBA coverage. If you haven’t noticed, the NBA coverage has turned decidedly “Urban” in the last 10 years. It’s gotten so bad, that I need Barbara Billingsly sitting next to me to “interpret” all the ebonic jive talk. Large panels of LOUD, unintelligible, black men provide “color” commentary for every NBA game (and increasingly, college basketball games). Suffice to say … the games are no longer being covered by “my people”. That wouldn’t ordinarily be a problem, if we shared the same interests and culture in the game … but it is rather apparent that we don’t.
    ESPN executives “reasoned” that their audience was primarily unemployed “people of color” who voted for Bernie Sanders … much as the NBA reasoned that their audience was poorly educated “urban” gangbangers. Or, at the least, was primarily white liberal college students hanging out in their dorm rooms. Who else would be tuning into PTI at 2:00p in the afternoon ? Unemployed black youth … and college liberals. Add to that faulty reasoning … the extreme Northeast USA liberal bias … and voila ! The all-sports network turns hard left.
    But ESPN is learning that their PAYING customers are NOT their newly targeted (and represented) audience. Just as the NFL learned by intentionally “televising” Kaepernicks knee to America’s head … they were offending their base PAYING demographic. ESPN strategically organized their own demise. And I believe they did it INTENTIONALLY during an election season … to add their “voices” to the cacophony of leftist media HATE. Well … I suppose all the economic suffering will be pinned on “technology” advances … but that will simply add to the rapidity of their demise. Sorry, ESPN … but there is very little $$$ in women’s basketball, and softball. You can pander all you want to the lesbian demographic … but it won’t add any $$$$ to your bottom line.
    I suppose none of this has permeated the NHL … which still features Barry Melrose, eh ? For now, Hockey is represented by its “own people” … i.e. “White Canadians”. The very demographic that fills the NFL coffers.

13. No other professional sport has more access to athletes than hockey. The players subject themselves to every stupid question a talking head can think of and answer it politely. It’s the Canadian way and nice to see. Don Cherry the ‘patriarch of the game’ constantly reminds kids of the rules. How NOT to act. These are important things because hockey is a violent sport.
    When I was a kid going up I loved basketball. Would include a game if I was travelling. Today I could care less about it and it’s shit. You are right Kenji it is all about jive talking rude privileged athletes who are spreading the wrong message.
    It’s not just ESPN that is feeling the cable squeeze. Cable is over. Same as a land line phone.

14. When you are bleeding viewers and subscribers seems the prudent thing to do would be to not intentionally antagonize over half your potential viewers. Good luck fighting the man from the welfare line. Guess they’ll have more time to do now.

15. Well, if ESPN wants to add in politics and cater to a broader demographic, that’s fine, but i don’t watch. I remember the Olympics in about 1996 and to cater to women NBC featured all sorts of emotional human interest background stories, apparently to draw in women viewers. That’s fine, but I watched CBC which was more sports-oriented coverage. Eventually I gave up on watching the olympics, or any sports coverage that deviates from sports coverage.

16. “I suppose none of this has permeated the NHL”
    Remember the metro-sexual Stroumboulopoulos on Roger’s Hockey. My hockey playing son-in-law thought he would be a nice guy to have around should he go queer some day.

17. Hockey has so many characteristics of true sportsmanship. The opposing players shake hands in two lines AFTER a hard fought, hard checking game. The other sport which did that was rugby. When rugby was introduced in America, it was mostly played by football players in the off-season. Rugby players from opposing teams traditionally go to the same bar and drink together after the game. Many football players say that’s the first they see the human face of players on other teams, whom they might have played against for two, three years.yer
    And I love the Stanley Cup, and I mean the Cup itself. It is rugged and you can drink out of it. Each player has his turn at hoisting it after winning, and also has it for a week, and what he generally does is fill the cup with beer and invite everyone he knows. I can’t tell you how great that is, being able to drink out of the Cup. (No, I never had the pleasure, alas.) It makes winning the Cup so close and personal, not just for the players, but for all their relatives and friends too.