quote:
It has NOTHING to do with politics. NOTHING. Stop injecting your political team sport bullshite into what are purely economic forces.

I have never heard of anyone getting rid of cable completely because they didn't like one channel, but that is what it would take to get rid of a ESPN that is a basic channel on 90%+ of cable providers.

What people are "fed up with" is a cable bill that goes up every month, or has some promo rate that changes into a frick-you-in-the-arse rate when the promo period is up. People are sick of paying for 300 channels when they watch at most 5. People are sick of how cable providers push more and more options on us (each with a higher price) that we don't want.

The only thing significant related to ESPN in this whole deal is often sports are the hardest thing for a cord cutter to get. Even if you get ESPN you might not get ESPNU or alternate SEC Network without cable, which keeps sports fans locked in cable. Making the decision to drop cable depends on how badly they want to see every football game.

But make no mistake- the SEC Network model is completely fricked in 10 years and it has nothing to do with politics and everything to do with market forces that have been moving in a certain direction ever since Youtube was created.

You are wrong.

People are dropping cable and going to designer subscriptions for a reason ... and it has very little to do with saving money on cable fees.

HBO is suffering a similar issue because their politics are blatantly bleeding over into their programming and cable subscribers are unsubscribing from their channels because they are tired of the bullshite.

Most of ESPN's programming is offered in packages. Viewers who have no allegiances to ESPN's current programming, because they are tired of the politics ESPN pushes, are tuning-out ... but the SEC Network was a way for ESPN to force subscribers to hold onto additional packages that include ESPNU and ESPNNews, as well as ESPN Classic ... but they are robbing Peter to pay Paul.

The "Go" model is the way of the future. It so happens that, right now at least, the WatchESPN, ESPN3 and SECNet+ streaming features are the most profitable of all "Go" models being offered in the world ... right now. And it's strictly because of pure sports programming inventory that has zero political content polluting what viewers are choosing to watch.

With that stated, and it being a fact of the matter, and with increased bandwidth pipes being offered to larger markets in the near future ... the cable/sat world is in trouble, no doubt about it. Why? Because viewers will be able to pick and choose and the SEC, as well as other inventory providers with niche networks and products, will be able to insist upon individual offerings (packages and access) to their potential subscribers.

The SEC Network is a cash cow not only for the 14 member programs, but it is the saving grace for ESPN right now because it anchored what, 71 million subscribers so far, it anchored them into the total ESPN Package for the time being. Meaning, if you want to watch all of the SEC games available and not miss a minute ... then you have to have the full ESPN Sports package with the ability to watch the games (just talking football, baseball and basketball here) on ESPN, ESPNU, ESPN2, WatchESPN, ESPN3, the SEC Network and SEC Net+.

But it is inevitable that the leagues, the NCAA, the NFL, MLB, et al., will all see opportunities in the future to break-off from ESPN and stream their product independently ... if they want, and keep all of the revenue rather than having to share with ESPN.

Soon though, very soon, viewers will be able to stream only the shows and sporting events they want ... and they will be able to avoid those who agitate the helloutta them with the politics.

I saw an interview the other day with a bunch of cable provider pundits and they all agreed ... people are tuning-out because of the agenda driven spillover. One, I think he represented DISH, even admitted that they are able to monitor viewer preferences through their Hopper DVR systems and they were amazed to see the stats coming back as far as how many subscribers opted to block MSNBC from their guide menu along with the porn channels. And I think he said the new history channel, or the one that replaced History International, VICE I think it is called, a spinoff of HBO ... people are blocking it. DirecTV admitted the same thing but named some other channels subscribers were blocking.

I mean think about that. Subscribers are actually blocking channels that they are provided ...

That's not cable cutting. That's being tired of the bullshite, plain and simple.