A Spirited Perfect Ten

rael ramone

rael ramone

Well-Known Member
doctornick said:
I'm not sure how to answer in regards to differentiating a "regular" product versus a "fully loaded" one for "whales". Bujt the nature of sports broadcasting is that you can't just "get" the games you want from other offerings. If a game you want to watch is being broadcasted by ESPN, then you would need ESPN to see it. Just because OTA channels or other sports channels carry some sports doesn't mean they isn't additional content that you could only get on ESPN.

If you are a hardcore fan of an SEC team, for example, between the football/basketball games on ESPN networks and the SEC Network (owned by Disney), you'd miss out on a lot of your teams' games without having access to ESPN's networks. Now, sure, you might be able to catch a few games on other channels like CBS, but a lot of fans want to see most/all of the games. That's what will drive subscriptions when the time comes.

ESPN owns all of the ACC rights, the bulk of the SEC rights, a good chunk of the Pac-12Big 12/Big Ten rights (though Big Ten rights are coming up again soon). They own a bunch of other conference's games in basketball. They own a number of NBA games, including playoff games. They own MNF. They own the college football playoffs and virtually all the bowl games. They own some significant soccer properties like US national team games and the Euro Cup. They own the British Open and part of the Masters. They own Wimbledon, the US Open and the Australian Open. Some of these games are on ABC, but the vast majority are not. If you want those specific games games, you'll need to get ESPN in some fashion*. That's a lot of programming to leverage to sell to consumers.

We have yet to see what will happen to ESPN in the future. But they definitely have a lot of valuable content. People do pay for sports and advertises pay to be seen with them. Many cord cutters will be glad to never have to be suckered into paying for ESPN because they don't care about sports. But many others will turn to sports broadcasting as the first "add on" they buy for their TV watching because they cannot live without it. There's definitely significant opportunity for ESPN to sell directly to consumers. It may be different tiers or different packages, but they have a lot of flexibility.

*I might be off on some of the broadcast rights. Don't bother to correct me, cause the point is that ESPN owns a lot of different sports' rights.
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While ESPN is clearly the little brother when it comes to the NFL (even if they didn't pay twice as much for their inferior rights package), where they have leverage is in College Football (I recall theorizing before that the Mouses most valuable franchise is 'College Gameday').

The question is how much they are able to monetize that, and does it have any chance of making up for the loss of other customers. If only 6% of current customers are even willing to pay a mere $20 a month, it doesn't sound good at all. They need some of those 6% to pay a LOT more than $20. There is still a decent amount of college content on a typical Saturday afternoon (SEC game of the week on CBS, ABC broadcasting the most desirable ESPN games for the local market [though they could spite themselves by pulling the content off ABC], NBC Notre Dame home games, plus a number of games on Fox Sports, Big 10 network, etc...).

They may own the highest potential rents on the Monopoly board, but if they don't get the revenue to build the hotels up and nobody lands on them they could end up just being mortgage fodder when they keep landing on the hotels on the Orange properties.
 
ford91exploder

ford91exploder

Resident Curmudgeon
doctornick said:
The Big Ten Network is co-owned between the Big Ten and Fox. They can "cut out" ESPN for that, but would not run it on their own. That said, it only has their tertiary game rights, with their primary and secondary rights -- the better games -- going to other networks (currently, ESPN & ABC for football and CBS & ESPN for basketball). Fans wouldn't consider that to be an adequate replacement when they can't get the major games.

The SEC Network is owned and run by ESPN. Disney owns virtually all the SEC's rights, except for some football games on CBS. No way to cut out ESPN.

All of the ACC's TV rights are owned by ESPN. Some games are sublet to Raycom but ESPN can pull them back. Again, no way to avoid ESPN.

The Big 12 has their rights split between ESPN and Fox. Sure, some games could be seen even with "avoiding" ESPN, but the customer would still have to deal with Fox. Also, some teams have tertiary rights packed on other networks -- like the Longhorn Network owned and operated by... ESPN.

The Pac-12 has their primary and secondary rights split between ESPN and Fox. But, finally, we get someone who actually fits your point -- the Pac-12 Network is owned by the conference. They are the only example of a major college conference that could be supplying direct to consumer themselves. Ironically, they also have had the worse distribution deal since they are not as popular a conference, so much fewer people get the P12N. I guess we'll see them test your theory in upcoming years, but it has not an easy ride yet.
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Right NOW ESPN has the contract for the Broadcast RIGHTS they do not OWN them the conferences do. None of these rights are permanent and exclusive as the UNI rights are to Marvel.

So when the SEC/ESPN and other contracts expires they can either do it themselves with a partner like Akamai who specializes in content distribution or they can license it to another sports network. I suspect this time round they will do it themselves as then they keep ALL the ad revenue.

The reality is that ESPN adds little value any longer as they are simply a content aggregator it creates little original programming and instead of seeking out new sports it simply plays reruns. The days of linear TV are DONE and companies need to adapt or die and ESPN shows little sign of adapting (part of which is the fact that Disney has NEVER grok'ed the Internet). Now that the tools are available to everyone it makes more sense to cut out the middleman.

ESPN needed to have a plan 3 years ago to move away from the simple content aggregator model, They have not and they are losing eyeballs to regional networks and outfits like Fox Sports where content is king not merely how many spots can we sell for FanDuel.
 
Cesar R M

Cesar R M

Well-Known Member
Tahu said:
Martin just uploaded his beautiful new Country Bears video. It's a gorgeous edit, but at the same time, it makes me hate the cuts in the current show even more.

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wow, thats a lot of changes.. I suppose they just simply accepted that the jamboree was no longer a "markee" or "top tier" attraction and cut it down for capacity purposes?
 
ParentsOf4

ParentsOf4

Well-Known Member
On December 18, Rich Greenfield of BTIG downgraded Disney stock. Disney CEO Bob Iger wasn't pleased with the downgrade, making the following very public statement when questioned about it during a December 21 interview on Bloomberg TV:

Well, I was curious or suspicious about the timing. If anybody wanted headlines the time to do it was the morning after "Star Wars" opened in the United States. And so it was headline grabbing. The analyst who came out with that report has been wrong about us on a number of occasions. And so one would have to question if he's been wrong so often before, you know, how valid were his comments this time around. And by the way, he's entitled to his opinions.

And the other thing I would say is I don't know where the accountability is. I don't know when he's wrong; I don't know who he's accountable for. But nothing has changed and we've got nothing to update since our last filing and our last earnings call regarding ESPN. So again, he's entitled to his opinions.​

The response by the normally composed (some say dull) Iger caused murmurs among those who closely follow financial news and, in at least one case, lead to an unusual public commentary by Eric Jackson, Managing Director at Ader Investment Management.

On December 21, the Dow closed at 17251.62. Yesterday's close was 15988.08, a decline of 7.3%.

On December 21, Disney closed at 106.59. Yesterday's close was 93.90, a decline of 11.9%.

The markets are overreacting, they always do, but I have to admit that listening again to Iger's un-CEO-like response to Greenfield's prophetic downgrade concerns me.

Business people suck up to CEOs. Good CEOs expect it and learn to take everything with a grain of salt. However, after a while, many CEOs actually start to believe the praise and, as a result, their abilities to handle criticism decline.

I recall Michael Eisner becoming slowly unhinged after his first decade as Disney CEO, increasingly attacking those who differed with him. Now that Iger has been CEO for a decade, I'm beginning to wonder if we're starting to see the same with Iger.
 
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C

choco choco

Well-Known Member
PhotoDave219 said:
Star Wars theater report. Still selling out IMAX, Still need to get there at least an hour early for good seats.
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I don't understand these stories. I saw Star Wars opening weekend, randomly showing up unplanned to my local multiplex, bought a ticket for the next showing that was in 15 minutes and had my pick of seats in a theater that had less than 20 people total. I didn't see any lines and nothing (not the concessions, not the bathrooms) was particularly busier than usual. My party and I were sitting there going, "where is everybody? I thought this was supposed to be big."

And this was a prominent multiplex in the Los Angeles area.
 
PhotoDave219

PhotoDave219

Well-Known Member
choco choco said:
I don't understand these stories. I saw Star Wars opening weekend, randomly showing up unplanned to my local multiplex, bought a ticket for the next showing that was in 15 minutes and had my pick of seats in a theater that had less than 20 people total. I didn't see any lines and nothing (not the concessions, not the bathrooms) was particularly busier than usual. My party and I were sitting there going, "where is everybody? I thought this was supposed to be big."

And this was a prominent multiplex in the Los Angeles area.
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Well.

There are only a handful of IMAX theaters on the continent of North America with a 70mm 4K digital laser projector. This is the only one in the DC area.
 
NearTheEars

NearTheEars

Well-Known Member
choco choco said:
I don't understand these stories. I saw Star Wars opening weekend, randomly showing up unplanned to my local multiplex, bought a ticket for the next showing that was in 15 minutes and had my pick of seats in a theater that had less than 20 people total. I didn't see any lines and nothing (not the concessions, not the bathrooms) was particularly busier than usual. My party and I were sitting there going, "where is everybody? I thought this was supposed to be big."

And this was a prominent multiplex in the Los Angeles area.
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Saw it in IMAX at MOSI Tampa last week to a nearly full house.

Saw it the Sunday of release weekend closer to home and had to wait till the evening showing for a ticket.

Just depends I guess.
 
gonzoWDW

gonzoWDW

Well-Known Member
choco choco said:
I don't understand these stories. I saw Star Wars opening weekend, randomly showing up unplanned to my local multiplex, bought a ticket for the next showing that was in 15 minutes and had my pick of seats in a theater that had less than 20 people total. I didn't see any lines and nothing (not the concessions, not the bathrooms) was particularly busier than usual. My party and I were sitting there going, "where is everybody? I thought this was supposed to be big."

And this was a prominent multiplex in the Los Angeles area.
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Maybe they've scaled back the amount of showings to a number that more closely matches demand? Opening weekend, SWwas playing in every auditorium pretty much, so there were probably a few underutilized showings.
 
Hakunamatata

Hakunamatata

Le Meh
Premium Member
choco choco said:
I don't understand these stories. I saw Star Wars opening weekend, randomly showing up unplanned to my local multiplex, bought a ticket for the next showing that was in 15 minutes and had my pick of seats in a theater that had less than 20 people total. I didn't see any lines and nothing (not the concessions, not the bathrooms) was particularly busier than usual. My party and I were sitting there going, "where is everybody? I thought this was supposed to be big."

And this was a prominent multiplex in the Los Angeles area.
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Hateful 8 prolly ate into the demand :rolleyes:
 

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