If you’d come up to me in the mid-1990s and said that ESPN would eventually dissolve because they couldn’t focus upon sports...without hyping some political gimmick....I would have laughed. Today? Unless something changes...I give them no more than five years before they get sold off to some Mexican TV group and mostly doing professional wrestling and European ice hockey games.
It was a perfect combination of sports and round-the-clock coverage. All you had to do....was avoid discussing politics in the mix of things.
ESPN quit doing straight sports. CNN quit doing straight news. And the Weather Channel quit doing straight weather. MTV quit doing straight music. AMC quit doing straight classic movies.
Narrowcasting worked, but folks weren’t satisfied with their slice of the pie - they wanted someone else’s slice, as well. And now the pie is getting smaller.