Dealing With A Problem Child: The Mothership's Bias Towards Money

THE DEALS: June 2007, ESPN/ABC extended their contract with the NBA for $930 million, allowing for 90 regular season games and all NBA Final games. In September 2011 ESPN extended their deal with the NFL through 2021 for $15.2 billion, allowing ESPN Monday Night Games and possibly one wildcard game. August 2012, ESPN extended their contract with the MLB to 2021 for $5.6 billion, allowing for 90 regular season games and possibly the All-Star break and Playoff games starting in 2014.

NFL alone is at most 70% of their pro sport budget, with the MLB in a not-so-close second place at 26% and the NBA rounding out their budget at 4%. SportsCenter's percentages of highlights and analysis are close to parallel with their expenditures, except for the fact that the NBA and the MLB switch places because of playoff rights.

ESPN IS A BUSINESS: In the TV business you make money from advertisements, and the only way you get advertisements are by showing businesses that people are watching your channel when the advertisement will be on. ESPN has a way of controlling that (Seeing as they're the self-proclaimed "Worldwide Leader in Sports") with their flagship program - SportsCenter.

ESPN knows that a lot of people tune in everyday to get a dose of yesterday's or today's sports news and highlights. Controlling the highlights they show they control the public's agenda. If they want us to talk and watch the NBA Final they just feed us 25 out of 60 minutes of LeBron James and Kobe Bryant discussion and b-roll. If they want us to watch their Preseason game between Tim Tebow and the Dallas Cowboy's third string defense they feed us 25 minutes of Sal Paolantonio LIVE at Jets' Training Camp.

The total minutes spent talking about each player in the span of one week

BUT WHAT ABOUT THE OTHER SPORTS: But what about Hockey, Soccer, and Baseball highlights? They can't fit all of that into 10 minutes? Plus they have the Top Ten at the end of each show. ESPN doesn't care though, they're getting the public to talk about NFL and NBA, the two sports they get the most money out of.


AN OPEN LETTER:
ESPN proclaims that they are the "Worldwide Leader In Sports". How can you be the "Worldwide Leader In Sports" when you only show two sports for 5/6 of an hour. How can you as the SELF-PROCLAIMED "Worldwide Leader In Sports" have a Stanley Cup Final: Game 1 go three overtimes and not show a single highlight in the first 45 minutes of the hour? How can you say you are the "Worldwide Leader In Sports" and not show two of the biggest sports during an hour of programming but spend 25 minutes talking about Tim Tebow going to the Patriots when the NFL hasn't had a practice snap in over four months and another 25 minutes talking about LeBron James when he won't be playing until the next day and hasn't played since two days before? You cannot ignore sports you don't have money in or sports will start ignoring you - and by this I mean - people will stop tuning in. The NFL and the NBA are good sports, but the NFL only matters for 16 weeks, and you only show one game per those 16 weeks. And the NBA doesn't matter until the playoffs - college basketball doesn't even matter until the playoffs - so why do you profess that it does? - The Association is a joke. You have great story lines appearing daily in other sports if you'd just turn on your TV monitors and watch the games for a few more minutes.
You could catch the BlackHawks in the middle of an amazing 24 game point streak. You could see Max Scherzer pitch 12 straight wins. You could see somebody other than LeBron James or Carmello Anthony make a basket, and you could possibly catch a real QB like Aaron Rodgers complete a pass - not this glorified TE, Tim Tebow - flail a football 13 yards.
Sincerely,
David B


ESPN TV deals thanks to:

MLB
USA Today
NY Times