ESPN loses 600K+ subscribers; we play Rutgers & Maryland

Submitted by TreyBurkeHeroMode on

According to Nielsen, ESPN lost 621,000 cable subscribers in just one month.

So nice work, Jim Delany. The cable sports business model began imploding juuuuuust as you decided that the potential for slightly larger pots of money in the short term outweighed us doing meaningless things like playing games against Wisconsin or Nebraska or Minnesota.

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Blue Balls Afire

November 7th, 2016 at 7:55 PM ^

I'm confused by your question, so the following response may be wildy inapplicable.  Apologies in advance.

I can't stand Rutgers.  I think they're a joke and they have a lot of work to do to be even mildly credible as a B1G member.  I place Maryland above Rutgers.  They were in deep financial trouble, but it seemed like they at least had some adult supervision there.  To me, they were a better fit for the conference than Rutgers.  I don't like either in the conference, but if it meant the benefits I mentioned above, I can live with that, especially since we have 9 conference games now. They're essentially the FCS patsies on the schedule, until they get their act together.  Who do I think was a better choice than MD to join the conference that was available?  I have no thoughts on that because my first 50 choices were all unavailable for one reason or another, like ND, Texas, UVA, UNC.  Getting them in the conference was not gonna happen, so we were stuck with MD and Rutgers.  Given that circumstance and the financial success of the B1G, I think Delaney gets undue criticism.

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Quail2theVict0r

November 7th, 2016 at 6:44 PM ^

Actually Delany was pretty good to get us the deal we got with the imploding network model. But, IMO, cable companies will compensate. What they'll do is put data caps on your home network (like Comcast did just this month in SE Michigan). People are cord cutting their cable but they still get internet from these main companies. It won't be long before comcast makes it more expensive to get their internet without a cable service that includes subscriptions like ESPN. Or they'll just put a data cap on it and make that data cap go away, or go bigger, with a cable service. Until we can get internet from companies that aren't Comcast, or the alike, I think they'll find a way (soon) to force us to pay for this stuff. 

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UMProud

November 7th, 2016 at 6:52 PM ^

I don't like Delaney.

That being said he inked a sweet deal right before the bottom fell out at ESPN...the timing couldn't have been better.  I suspect when the contract expires it will not be quite as lucrative next time around.

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mgoblue0970

November 7th, 2016 at 7:06 PM ^

I would think it's their talent lineup... Jemele Hill, Smith, Bayless, yada yada yada.  Fuck anything on ESPN these days outside of live games.

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BLHoke

November 7th, 2016 at 7:08 PM ^

Yeah, I'd like for all the Big Ten "blue bloods" to play each other every season... Then rotate the also rans in there a few like Maryland, Rutgers, Purdue, Illinois & NW. Would not bother me in the least to see Nebraska & Wisconsin on the schedule every year.



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BoFan

November 7th, 2016 at 7:09 PM ^

It's really not that straight forward. It's not a good idea to make conclusions and accusations when you have no idea what your taking about.

That seems to be an all too popular thing these days.

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PeterKlima

November 7th, 2016 at 8:37 PM ^

The thread refers to a drop in cable subscribers, to which I say, what does that matter. I dropped cable this year BUT ONLY because I knew I could get ESPN as part of SlingTV. They are still bundled with a bunch of other channels, but now I pay only 20 bucks a month for 20 channels... instead of 100 bucks for 700 channels. it seems like this shouldn't hurt ESPN too much... nor the B1G network. There is too much money and control to allow a complete ala cart model.

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BornInA2

November 7th, 2016 at 8:45 PM ^

This house of cards, which is dependent in ever-increasing piles of money, is going to fall. There is more than enough money for college football to be fun and safe and mutually beneficial for the schools, athletes, and employees/staff.

The blathering talking heads, proliferating ad slots, 'sponsor' names plastered all over everything, and back-channel bag-money people can all go away for all I care.

Give me a silent broadcast and a simple way to sync the local radio call and I'm good.

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