Dish and ESPN

[Tampa8]

I have to be honest, I can not tell how losing ESPN (meaning permanently or for a very long time) would affect Dish. On the one hand I believe there are not as many who have to have the sports channels as many think. But then in the case of ESPN they have other popular programming, including of course Monday night Football, as well as shows like Around the Horn and PTI. With Dish not having the NFL package or the MLB package, it is possible ESPN is just enough for those who do like *some* sports to see those games shown there, along with what else they get on Fox or their RSN etc. At the least, it is no slam dunk that Dish will do well without ESPN. I guess the other factor is how not being on Dish would affect ESPN, and if true that Direct may balk also at increases in cost, perhaps it is ESPN who will blink.

 

[ronfelder]

Problem for Dish to raise rates is that they have as price freeze until 2013. Should they raise rates do to espn they'd be breaking their agreement of no price increase until 2013.

 

[ronfelder]

ESPN is forcing every cable/sat sub in the country to subsidize out of control salaries in professional sports. If the MNFL games are worth 15 BILLION dollars, then they certainly can make it up in the ad revenue that it generates. That's how it would have worked if ABC had the games. Instead, they offer up the billions, divide the cost by the number of cable/sat subs, and force that price on everyone. Somewhere along the line, somebody does need to take a stand. Eventually, the prices are going to reach a breaking point.

Currently, the DBacks are in first place and certainly headed to the playoffs. The broadcasters constatntly complain about the lack of attendance. I was looking to go to the Giants/DBacks game in a couple of weeks. To sit in decent seats along the first base side, 30 rows up, a ticket costs $140. Wonder why they can't fill the stadium?

They sell out every game here in Philly and the tickets aren't any cheaper I believe.Put out a good product and they will go.

 

[ronfelder]

I have an idea: How about Dish dig into it's billion dollar a year profit margin to pay the 10 extra cents a subscriber it would take to renew the nation's most popular cable sports channel? Radical notion, I know.

Second to channel disputes like this one, one of the things I'm sickest of hearing about when it comes to future Dish programming changes is the idea that sports could be a premium add-on package. For many of us, the primary reason we have a paid television provider in the first place is sports. I would venture to guess that sports was the big driver of making cable/satellite almost a standard utility type deal in this country instead of a niche market. How about making all those children's and movie channel channels their own premium package instead? I don't think I have ever watched the Disney Channel in my entire adult life. I don't watch Lifetime, or Oxygen, or Oprah either. If they really feel they need to separate sports channels out, they should give people the option to subscribe only to those, instead of forcing sports fans to subsidize every other channel and then pay a fee for the sports stuff on top of it.

More people subsidize sports than the other way. Movies is what made cable wanted followed by sports.

 

[ronfelder]

Compared to the ESPN of 20 years ago, today's ESPN (1-Ocho) approach a waste of bandwidth. It's kinda like MTV, 20 years ago they were music videos and today I doubt one can even find a music video on the channel.

I used to watch ESPN because they covered sports that local stations and newspapers failed to report: the smaller schools, auto racing, boat racing etc. Now it is endless hours of talking about the big, mainstream sports and teams. It has reached the point I even go to other .com sites for sports results.

If Dish were to part ways with ESPN, I say good riddence. I don't want to hear Monday Night Football talk about everything except what is going on the field.

Miner

What do we need espn when the four major sports have there own network? Isn't that enough got a sports junky?

 

[gdarwin]

Two things... First we could not watch the Baltimore ALMS races at work because our ISP does not subscribe to ESPN3... Also this same ISP provided Internet access to the hotel I was staying at in Bowling Green, KY. Second - I have too much stuff on EHD'S. About 10 gig. None of the content archived is provided by ESPN.... I'm feed up with ESPN right now...

 

[rthomp03]

ESPN and my local RSN are probably the only channels that would make me switch providers if they were dropped. Not only does ESPN carry one of the biggest NFL games every week they carry pretty much all of the biggest college football games that aren't on local channels. I don't know any specific numbers but it has to be at least a top 5 most popular cable channel. Dish would be crazy to even consider dropping ESPN.

Ditto for me. I'm as loyal to Dish as they come and love their service, but losing ESPN would just be too much. I need my college BB in the winter.

 

[rajmarie]

To save $4.69? I don't think most people would decide that about $5 is worth switching providers over. I'm sure a few would come but I think they would lose much more than they would gain. That $5 is only if Dish decided to give 100% of what they would no longer be paying back to their customers with a reduced rate. I don't see them doing that either.

5 bucks is quite a lot. Dont believe me...head over to Netflix threads on any form. People are pissed off that having DVD & streaming is going to cost them 8 bucks extra. See the similarities. If eg 100k subs leave but 200k joins...it's espn who will be losing more money.

 

[whatchel1]

Two things... First we could not watch the Baltimore ALMS races at work because our ISP does not subscribe to ESPN3... Also this same ISP provided Internet access to the hotel I was staying at in Bowling Green, KY. Second - I have too much stuff on EHD'S. About 10 gig. None of the content archived is provided by ESPN.... I'm feed up with ESPN right now...

I hope that 10 gig is a typo. That's almost nothing on EHDD.

 

[DodgerKing]

A mod on the other site actually made a good point that may have some truth to it.

What would you do if Dish dropped ESPN? - Page 2 - DBSTalk.Com

 

[Hemi 6.1]

I see some things never change. Dish still dropping channels, and people still making excuses.

 

[whatchel1]

There has not been a channel dropped. This is all a ploy of Disney to try and scare customers into a price increase as being necessary. The proposal is nothing more than that a proposal to move the sports channels to a package that is for sports. I feel this is nothing more than scare tactics of a very greedy supplier of programming. I also do not agree w/ the mod from the other site. The person has been completely taken in by the scare tactic. Disney is in the process of losing in court and they are PO'd and are using these tactics to scare the public and try to pull their A out of the fire. They are seeing a reduced revenue stream and that makes them MAD.

 

[DodgerKing]

I see some things never change. Dish still dropping channels, and people still making excuses.

To be fair, Hemi. This time they have not dropped anything and I believe their contract is still good for more than a year. Even if it is eventually dropped (which I doubt this time) it will be a while

 

[DodgerKing]

There has not been a channel dropped. This is all a ploy of Disney to try and scare customers into a price increase as being necessary. The proposal is nothing more than that a proposal to move the sports channels to a package that is for sports. I feel this is nothing more than scare tactics of a very greedy supplier of programming. I also do not agree w/ the mod from the other site. The person has been completely taken in by the scare tactic. Disney is in the process of losing in court and they are PO'd and are using these tactics to scare the public and try to pull their A out of the fire. They are seeing a reduced revenue stream and that makes them MAD.

My agreement was with his point about how higher priced popular channels in a package help carry the lower priced channels in the same package that would otherwise be placed in a higher package

 

[rapidturtle]

Lets not forget about ESPN's NASCAR coverage. Their 10 race playoff is starting now, and I am pretty sure 9 of them are on ESPN. NASCAR has a very large following that would be pretty upset over losing coverage.

 

[whatchel1]

My agreement was with his point about how higher priced popular channels in a package help carry the lower priced channels in the same package that would otherwise be placed in a higher package

In many cases I would agree; in this one I don't. I feel this is nothing more than Disney trying to scare the S*** out of people. Just like they tried to scare Starz w/a fake lawsuit in allowing E* to give away a yr. of their programming. You have to consider the source in this case. DISNEY is the 800 lb gorilla. That gorilla is seeing the King Kong treatment happening to it and is lashing out in every way possible. It is time for the gorilla to go back to the jungle or be tamed and put in a zoo.
To rapidturtle the contract isn't even going to be up until well after the NASCAR coverage is over.

 

[The Fat Man]

It would be a big loss. However, as others have said, CBS changed their college sports channel to an all sports channel, professional leagues have their own networks, and Versus is becoming an NBC sports channel, I feel that Disney knows that ESPN's stay on top of the mountain is limited, and they feel that they need to cash in before their value drops. Also, as said, Disney is obviously lashing out for not getting anywhere with their lawsuit against Dish.

Also, don't think that for one minute that if ESPN goes, we can eventually lump the rest of the Disney fleet into the loss column. And that's where the mindless drones will blame Dish. My wife included, who yelled that if Disney Channel disappears, so will Dish in our house. I told her that's fine, but be ready to pay for Dish and a second provider, because they're giving us a bunch of free perks as of now. Perks that I never got when I was with Cable.

 

[Slamminc11]

I see some things never change. Dish still dropping channels, and people still making excuses.

I see some things really do never change, you're still jumping to conclusions...

 

[rufwork]

A mod on the other site actually made a good point that may have some truth to it.

What would you do if Dish dropped ESPN? - Page 2 - DBSTalk.Com

The Jenga metaphor there is well done.

I also think (sorry if this has been covered) that ESPN is obviously one of the only dealbreakers for many subscribers. I'm probably calling up tomorrow to turn my Flex back on almost exclusively to watch Monday Night Football, PTI, SportsCenter, and, admittedly, NFL Channel (which is apparently still in the sports pack) and NFL RedZone. Everything else is gravy. (Luckily there are others around who like to watch gravy, so it's not $57 a month for the NFL.)

So perhaps only 20% subscribe primarily or exclusively for sports, and Sunday Ticket has to draw most NFLers to DirecTV, but every one of those 20% want ESPN to be there or they'll take money elsewhere. Dish is over a barrel on this one, I think, though they've already got a special sports tier, 120+. If that's the only place you find ESPN, I think, Jenga aside, it's a win-win.

EDIT: From that same link, above, it looks like it might not be 20% but 2.5%. That's hard to believe, but for Dish (vs. DirecTV), perhaps that's true.

From a Deadline New York story on the same subject:
Quote:
ESPN and ESPN2 represent about 20% of a typical pay TV provider’s wholesale programming costs even though the channels just appeal to 2.5% of the viewers, Bernstein Research analyst Craig Moffett says in a new report.

 

[whatchel1]

The Jenga metaphor there is well done.

I also think (sorry if this has been covered) that ESPN is obviously one of the only dealbreakers for many subscribers. I'm probably calling up tomorrow to turn my Flex back on almost exclusively to watch Monday Night Football, PTI, SportsCenter, and, admittedly, NFL Channel (which is apparently still in the sports pack) and NFL RedZone. Everything else is gravy. (Luckily there are others around who like to watch gravy, so it's not $57 a month for the NFL.)

So perhaps only 20% subscribe primarily or exclusively for sports, and Sunday Ticket has to draw most NFLers to DirecTV, but every one of those 20% want ESPN to be there or they'll take money elsewhere. Dish is over a barrel on this one, I think, though they've already got a special sports tier, 120+. If that's the only place you find ESPN, I think, Jenga aside, it's a win-win.

EDIT: From that same link, above, it looks like it might not be 20% but 2.5%. That's hard to believe, but for Dish (vs. DirecTV), perhaps that's true.

Have you read the article or are you just reading what is on the 2 forums from respondents?