I don't watch sports networks of any kind, but I've seen anecdotes online that ESPN, especially sportscenter, is losing viewers because of politicization of content, where people just want sports talk.
They're losing viewers because we're turning away from television. That much is obvious to all. There are many ways to view, every event has countless streams, we get our sports news in granular form on our mobile, etc.
However in the wake of that, some very sad people have decided to get on their soapbox and claim that they're really declining because they don't parrot whatever their personal position is. I've seen these people claim that ESPN is faltering because they have a problem with players who rape or beat women. Others -- the same ones who say that they don't want it to be "preachy" -- get up in arms if ESPN isn't preachily attacking the Colin Kaepernick's of the world. Etc.
So as is often the case, the most partisan of all are the ones claiming that everything is some crazy partisan slant.
You might as well say that if a politician commits crimes, political coverage shouldn't mention it -- after all, that's not "actual political content", right?
I doubt the same inferences should be made so strongly regarding sports players.
Which means they do end up being role models, because "work hard and you can succeed" is something we desperately want to teach children, even when it doesn't seem to be true. So athletes' stories get told as a means to inspire people to better themselves, and that makes their character extremely relevant.
I don't know. There's a "sportsmanship" mythos out there, but I'm not sure it's the dominant one.
I see a lot more of the love-my-team-hate-your-team culture in sports that looks a lot like modern "my team" politics. I'm just struggling with the implication of that. Do we encourage rabid sports fandom to give a relatively harmless space for the tribal impulse? Or does it just train people to support their parties and politicians the same way they support their favorite jerseyed heroes?
the same is true for Fox Sports 1. it's simply not true that consumers are watching sports programming that isn't politicized more than that which is
In otherwords, perhaps their best watched shows are the ones in the worst decline / their best watched (i.e. tent pole shows) are bleeding the most viewers. I can't speak to the cause.
espn's problems are overpaying for content (live sports), paying a huge number of employees who barely move the needle in the twitter age (all of their reporters, basically) and the rise of alternatives to cable like netflix, amazon prime, hulu and bamtech
Add in rumors that the NFL influences its schedule to give ESPN less-desirable games for Monday Night Football, and the NBA strongly favoring TNT/TBS, and what's left? They can't run Sportscenter 24 hours a day.
http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/5627cd349dd7cc10008...
Basically ESPN's executives shit the bed over and over for a number of years and the rank and file workers are the ones that end up paying for their mistakes.
[1] From http://www.businessinsider.com/espn-mistakes-led-to-layoffs-...
MIT Technology Review is not an institution of higher learning. It's a magazine supposedly focused on reporting about science and technology.
> When the president says that climate change is a hoax
The tweet I mentioned had nothing to do with climate change...not sure where you got that from.
"The mission of MIT Technology Review is to equip its audiences with the intelligence to understand a world shaped by technology." I don't think ignoring any story that happens to involve a politician would help serve that mission.
But that's exactly the problem.
Anything can be used politically.
First, it's an investment; it's not taking away money; it's not robbery. It has a return, a benefit that generally exceeds the cost (I'm not sure how much I paid to fly Cassini to Saturn, but wow was it worth it). People make investments all the time and are happy to do it, in everything from houses to the local homeless shelter to a new computer.
Second, people normally and frequently participate in group decisions, even though they rarely get exactly what they want. To suggest that anything besides an individual choosing alone is extraordinary - that isn't how people really operate.
People clearly seem to justify funding to their favorite cause as progress to humanity. However a progressive or otherwise agenda is itself purely politics.
Answering a question is research, deliberately avoiding a question is politics.
I see ESPN addressing social issues, such as abuse of women, but I don't call that political. Of course, any person can say: X is against my politics; but on that basis everything is politics.
The reality is that there's a segment of the public that's part of an ideological political movement. Consistent with such movements, everything and everyone that doesn't share the political ideology are viewed as political enemies; the goal is to wipe out all apostates and non-believers. If ESPN doesn't share their ideology, they are portrayed as political enemies. In the end, that group is a small minority (per surveys, not per online volume or representation on cable news); we can't be intimidated into silence on important social issues.
> I've seen anecdotes online
As a basis of knowledge, that has been so misleading for so long, especially regarding politicized issues like this one, that IMHO repeating it mostly magnifies misinformation.
It isn't.
A simpler way to explain what you're getting at is: if reporting is about someone the viewer identifies with, or an issue the viewer sees as relevant to/personally affecting them, then they see it as fine. But if it's about someone the viewer doesn't identify with, or an issue the viewer doesn't see as relevant to/personally affecting them, well, that's "politics".
Thus: male viewers see it as "political" to cover women or issues affecting women. White viewers see it as "political" to cover people of color or issues affecting people of color. And there is some research to show that even small amounts of representation get perceived as a much higher percentage, by an audience used to zero as the baseline representation of people unlike themselves.
Oddly, they never seem to realize just how much "politics" had to happen to create and maintain the situation in which those other people and issues weren't considered fit to cover or even mention.
I agree that ESPN's decline has more to do with over-extending themselves on rights deals while cord-cutting has become "a thing" than politics. However, I don't think you can discount the politics angle as a reason that a sizable number of people have finally decided "you know, I can do without ESPN." The amount of people who I've seen, online and in person, citing the absolutely insufferable, constant politicization of ESPN (and the media in general), regardless of which side of the aisle these people sit on, leads me to believe that a lot of people are simply exhausted and just want "sports". Barring that, they're quite willing to just drop ESPN. I think it really is a legitimate factor here.
I don't. In fact I agree entirely with the notion that ESPN is shooting itself in the foot by constantly pushing politics that play well in NYC & LA, but actively turn off viewers in the rest of the country. I'm just saying it would still be failing; albeit more slowly if it "just stuck to sports".
How many?