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Comment by raverbashing | Hacker News Reader

This is good news

Entrenched business need to suffer pain to move.

In this case, not ESPN necessarily, but NFL and other content providers

It's probably good news in the long run, but there might be some severe pain in the short- and medium-terms if you believe Ben Thompson's argument that "sports is the linchpin holding the entire post-WWII American economy together". You can read his reasoning at https://stratechery.com/2016/the-sports-linchpin/ and https://stratechery.com/2016/tv-advertisings-surprising-stre..., but it basically goes like this: (statements in parentheses are the companies that are going to be hurting bad if sports takes a dive)

- Sports are the only reason left to tune in to live TV

- Live TV is the only reason to have cable (telcos, cable networks)

- Live TV is the only reason to buy TV ads on broadcast networks (broadcast networks)

- TV ads are the thing propping up a lot of "old-guard" companies (retailers, CPG companies, car companies)

Essentially the old order is a mutually self-supporting structure propping itself up (Retailers and CPG companies need TV to reach a mass audience, TV needs these companies to buy ads), and sports is the thing holding it together.

Again, if this falls apart it might be for the best in the end, but it's going to be a bumpy time if telcos, retailers, large consumer goods companies, and broadcast networks all get hammered at the same time. Collectively they account for quite a bit of employment and GDP.

I'm not sure I agree with point 4. Does the articles you link go into how that connection is made?

Why are internet (such as youtube) ads not enough?

The second link explains it pretty well.

Definitely painful but the contents of how we measure our economy might need to undergo that anyway. There's always a talk about consumption but maybe we're at a point when we really do have enough and there's only marginal innovation left for some of the basic consumer goods - like the introduction of those curved tvs. Especially with a lot of us younger folks already living in a world of debt, stagnant wages, and unaffordable housing in the major metro areas.

Looking forward to reading those links. Thanks for sharing.

What about those talent shows and celebrity dancing shows? Are they not live events?

I don't watch them, but it seems a lot of people do, and not as highlights.

It's not at all clear to me advertisers need television as much as television needs advertisers. There are all sorts of ways to get your message out to consumers.

It's gonna hit player salaries pretty hard. ~1/2 of revenue goes to players.

http://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/11200179/nfl-teams-divide...

$171 million of player costs against $324 million in revenues.

When you are a football player, and this is what you have been training and dreaming of your entire life, making $15mil instead of $30m, or maybe $1m instead of $2m on the low end, would not make you stop playing football and start selling insurance or whatever.

I was simply commenting about where the money goes. Players capture a lot of the revenue, a decline in revenue will thus likely be reflected in a decline in their compensation. To your point, they can go down quite a lot and still be viable.

Well that's tragic /s

Gotcha, I was just saying how I doubt it will result in worse player quality, at least not immediately.

Not player quality but maybe, just maybe extremely ostentatious lifestyle will be less visible.

It's more about young athletes who have the choice between sports where your brain turns to mush and make half as much as you used to or other sports that are easier on the body. Look whats happened to boxing.

Not as soon as you might think. NBA just signed a broadcast deal with Turner and ESPN big enough to allow every teams salary cap to increase to $94m (from $70m) per year. This is making even mediocre players incredibly wealthy this year.

Take for example this feature on a relatively unknown player named Tyler Johnson[0], who just signed a deal that'll earn him about half of Michael Jordan's entire cumulative career salary in just 4 years -- or $50 million. And that's one of the lowest new deals cited in the article.

I do know that it's a fact broadcast deals affect player salaries, but I expect salaries to continue trending upward even while broadcasters shift focus to web/streaming distribution.

0. http://www.espn.com/espn/feature/story/_/id/17892288/how-mia...

Doesn't seem so bad to me. Chances are they will try just as hard, as the minimum salaries in pro sports are still a fairly long distance from what those guys could otherwise be doing. There's also the prestige of participating in the spectacle. Even when sports people were paid merely above average salaries they'd do it. You can even look at lower league participants; they're happy to work a job as well as practice for the chance to make it.

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