In some ways, you gotta feel for the people calling the shots at ESPN these days. No matter what they do, there’s a not-so-small portion of the audience that can’t be satisfied. They will compare anything on the network now to what it was when they were growing up in the early or mid-90s.
Then there’s the fact that sites like this one exist.
Every personnel decision, every new graphics package, and all behind the scenes drama get dissected to Hell and back.
Opinions about ESPN are shared publicly and privately all the time. I’ll bet they are in your text chains during any game you watch on the network, and I bet a lot of those opinions are negative. Not only is the perception of the network arguably at an all-time low, but we’re human beings. We don’t go out of our way to share positive opinions.
How can ESPN afford the reputational damage? Why are the bosses not swayed by outcries of Pat McAfee ruining College GameDay or of Stephen A. Smith insulting his viewers’ intelligence with his potential run for president?
It’s 2025. Live sports are more valuable than ever to broadcasters and pay-TV providers. The games are currency and that makes ESPN Scrooge McDuck.
Monday Night Football, the SEC, the ACC, the NBA, the NHL, golf, tennis, it’s all on ESPN. The network doesn’t need your respect. It has your eyes.
It’s why Disney bosses are digging in their heels for this fight with YouTubeTV. Sure, our recent, very unscientific poll shows that the public overwhelmingly blames Disney for the standoff that is keeping ESPN off of YouTubeTV at the moment, but they know who the audience is.
Do you want to watch Oklahoma at Alabama this weekend? How about Texas at Georgia? Those are two top 11 matchups in the SEC. Guess where the only place you can watch SEC football is!
The Dallas Cowboys are always one of the most popular teams in the NFL. They play on Monday night next week. Guess what that means if you don’t have access to ESPN right now!
ESPN holds all the power. The network and its parent company, Disney, certainly hope that means that Google, owner of YouTubeTV, will play ball and meet their demands. There’s reportedly $2 billion on the line.
However, ESPN knows that sports fans that can’t watch sports are more likely to leave YouTube TV if this fight drags on long enough. If you do leave YouTubeTV, Disney would love to tell you about Hulu+Live TV, Fubo, or the new ESPN Unlimited app.
There was a time when reputation and what critics said and thought mattered to ESPN, but that was a lifetime ago. It was a restaurant chain, a cell phone service, and a Walt Disney World vacation package ago. Those are all things that existed and found an audience (a very small one in most cases) back when SportsCenter anchors appeared on Letterman and when you had to wait for Boomer and TJ on Sunday night to show you the entire day of NFL highlights.
ESPN built its brand in the 90s, when you could have water cooler conversations about what was on TV because so many people watched the same thing at the same time. But the internet broke that monoculture.
The network’s brand is more prevalent than most teams and players, regardless of their sport. ESPN is big. It’s going to be the bad guy sometimes. Maybe the network and the people in charge are just done fighting that reality and have decided to flex their muscles a little bit.
Think back to Monday night when Disney boss Bob Iger joined the Manning brothers on ESPN2. Absolutely nothing was said about the negotiations to get ESPN and other Disney networks (but let’s be real, no one cares about those) back onto YouTube TV. He didn’t apologize to the viewers caught in the middle. There was no update on where things stand between the two companies or where they may go from here. He just told us why he liked the Packers.
Bob Iger runs Disney. Disney owns ESPN. ESPN has the games. You care a lot about the games. There’s no need to pretend everybody is equal here.
ESPN wears a lot of hats, and that means that a person that likes some of the hats are going to hate others. Disney knows that, but it also knows you love the games. As long as most of the games air on ESPN, no one at the company has any reason to think about how the brand is perceived as long as ratings are up and revenue keeps coming in.
You aren’t going to punish yourself. If your team is playing on ESPN, you going to find a way to watch ESPN. The network doesn’t need to know what you think or say about it while it’s on your screen.
About Demetri Ravanos