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As ESPN Got More Political in 2016, It Lost Republican Viewers
Deep Root Analytics ^ | April 27, 2017 | Staff

Posted on 04/28/2017 3:41:15 AM PDT by C19fan

Yesterday, it was announced ESPN is laying off upwards of 100 employees – many of whom are prominent on-air talent. The challenges facing ESPN are newly discovered; a lot has been written about ESPN’s recent decline in ratings and subscriptions. FOX Sports – the primary TV competitor to “the worldwide leader in sports” – has enjoyed twisting the knife as ESPN faces cutting on-screen talent to make up for budget shortfalls. The FOX blog “Outkick the Coverage” has attributed ESPN’s decline to the rising partisanship coming out of Bristol, labeling the network “MSESPN” in pieces like this one, headlined “ESPN Profit Plummets As Network Turns Left”. “Outkick the Coverage’s” Clay Travis supports his argument with Scarborough data showing most sports fans are conservative politically. With the news of today’s layoffs, Travis argues that the network’s leftward turn is “more a symptom of the collapse than it is a cause of the collapse.”

(Excerpt) Read more at deeprootanalytics.com ...


TOPICS: Sports; TV/Movies
KEYWORDS: corporateliberalism; disneynews; espn; firedrushlimbuagh; hypocrites; liberalmedia; trashtv
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Cable cutting combined with massive fixed costs for content is the primary cause of ESPNs trouble. But the management has poured a ton of lubricant on the hill with their embrace of the Left rapidly increasing their decline.
1 posted on 04/28/2017 3:41:15 AM PDT by C19fan
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To: C19fan

How are people doing cable cutting yet staying on the internet?


2 posted on 04/28/2017 3:53:03 AM PDT by Glad2bnuts (If Republicans are not prepared to carry on the Revolution of 1776, prepare for a communist takeover)
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To: C19fan

Just shut up and:

Report the sports news.
Make the coffee.
Stay out of the bathroom.......

Easy peazy business lesson.


3 posted on 04/28/2017 3:55:34 AM PDT by mad_as_he$$
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To: C19fan

Same as with me staying away from CBC’s “Hockey Night in Canada”. I am fed up with Ron Maclean and the others there (not Don Cherry though) forever trying to ram their political correctness down people’s throats when all I want is just simply watching the game.


4 posted on 04/28/2017 3:57:48 AM PDT by OttawaFreeper ("If I had to go to war again, I'd bring lacrosse players" Conn Smythe)
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To: Glad2bnuts

How are people doing cable cutting yet staying on the internet?


Just pay for internet service only.


5 posted on 04/28/2017 3:59:55 AM PDT by joshua c (Cut the cord! Don't pay for the rope they hang you with.)
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To: C19fan
Nobody has mentioned this yet, but I think the recent hyper-growth in political sports talk can be traced back to when Bob Costas gave his anti-gun speech on Sunday Night Football in December 2012.

-PJ

6 posted on 04/28/2017 4:01:26 AM PDT by Political Junkie Too (The 1st Amendment gives the People the right to a free press, not CNN the right to the 1st question.)
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To: C19fan

They seem to have been a crusade to destroy football and publicize the dozen or so transgender people who are “bravely trying to compete” in whatever sport they are trying to do. I’m just tired of hearing about it.


7 posted on 04/28/2017 4:07:24 AM PDT by perez24
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To: joshua c

Yup. I have no TV now. But I’m here.


8 posted on 04/28/2017 4:15:30 AM PDT by ClearCase_guy (Abortion is what slavery was: immoral but not illegal. Not yet.)
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To: Glad2bnuts

AFAIK M$-ESPN is not an ISP.


9 posted on 04/28/2017 4:17:18 AM PDT by Paladin2
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To: C19fan

ESPN employees made 418 political donations to federal candidates in the 2016 election cycle.
Only 20 (5%) of those donations were to Republicans. (per FEC records)
ESPN = DNC


10 posted on 04/28/2017 4:18:17 AM PDT by CivilWarguy
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To: CivilWarguy

On Twitter people were Livid Jemille Hill wasn;t let go


11 posted on 04/28/2017 4:20:01 AM PDT by scooby321 (o even lower)
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To: C19fan

Back when Kaepernick “took the knee”. I tried to explain to my liberal coworker that sports was entertainment, not politics. He practically yelled that it was Kaepernick’s right to “make a statement.”. I said I suspected the audience was largely conservative and even if it was a 50/50 split a snowman should not needlessly insult half his audience. As with all similar conversations I had to change the subject for fear my coworker would stroke-out.


12 posted on 04/28/2017 4:32:25 AM PDT by Gen.Blather
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To: joshua c; C19fan

Internet only would be great!
However, Comcast charges *more* for internet only service.
I have basic cable with a few HBO channels. HBO is all but worthless.
There’s about a dozen stations packaged with basic cable. That’s it!
It - is - awful!

I’m in Atlanta and have two choices for internet; Comcast or AT&T. Yes, it sucks!


13 posted on 04/28/2017 4:33:30 AM PDT by Original Lurker
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To: ClearCase_guy

“Yup. I have no TV now. But I’m here.”

Cut the cable years ago. I have a leaf antenna for over-the-air digital hd tv (one time purchase cost), internet service and an android tv box (one-time purchase cost).


14 posted on 04/28/2017 4:57:03 AM PDT by Castigar
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To: Glad2bnuts

NETFLIX and Amazon Prime. Bill goes from 115 to 50 a month plus 10 dollar fee for NETFLIX.


15 posted on 04/28/2017 4:57:07 AM PDT by castlegreyskull
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To: All

ESPN and the entertainment industry as a whole had better wake up: The day that White, Heterosexual males completely stop patronizing them, they collapse.


16 posted on 04/28/2017 4:59:29 AM PDT by Maverick68
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To: castlegreyskull

Man, prices are insane over there... My Fiber Optic here costs about $40/mo .. O.O


17 posted on 04/28/2017 5:05:18 AM PDT by Bikkuri
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To: Political Junkie Too

ESPN had hired Hunter S. Thompson years before that and he wrote how the abuses at Abu Ghraib sickened him WORSE than the worst NAZI attrocities. That was 2004.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1141560/posts
ESPN SCRUBS HUNTER S. THOMPSON BUSH BASH
Drudge Report ^ | 5/24/04 | Matt Drudge

In a column entitled, “Let’s Go to the Olympics,” Thompson went off on the Abu Ghraib prison picture scandal, exclaiming: “Not even the foulest atrocities of Adolf Hitler ever shocked me so badly as these [Abu Ghraib] photographs did.”

...The cleansed paragraph now reads:

“These horrifying digital snapshots of the American dream in action on foreign soil are worse than anything even I could have expected. I have been in this business a long time and I have seen many staggering things, but this one is over the line.

As with the original, Thompson still concludes with the thought: “Now I am really ashamed to carry an American passport.”


http://www.espn.com/espn/page2/story?page=thompson/040518


18 posted on 04/28/2017 5:08:31 AM PDT by a fool in paradise (patriots win, Communists and Socialist Just-Us Warriors lose)
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To: Glad2bnuts

I have never owned cable, Internet is separate.

When my wife and I stay at a hotel, we usually peruse the cable offerings, and wonder why people want cable.

500 channels and nothing worthwhile on it.


19 posted on 04/28/2017 5:10:46 AM PDT by rlmorel (President Donald J. Trump ... Making Liberal Heads Explode, 140 Characters at a Time)
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To: a fool in paradise
"...Not even the foulest atrocities of Adolf Hitler ever shocked me so badly as these [Abu Ghraib] photographs did..."

Never heard that quote, but it doesn't surprise me. Liberals have no idea how stupid they continually sound when they make statements like that to normal people.

Even the most pedestrian American has likely seen skeletal holocaust victims being thrown, wheel-barrowed, and bulldozed into mass graves.

And somehow, seeing a man with a hood on his head and dummy wires on his fingers, or prisoners doing a human pyramid is worse.

Yes. It illustrates the inanity of liberals.

20 posted on 04/28/2017 5:15:15 AM PDT by rlmorel (President Donald J. Trump ... Making Liberal Heads Explode, 140 Characters at a Time)
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