For the last few decades, ESPN has been the unquestioned “Worldwide Leader in Sports.” What started as a Connecticut based, Connecticut focused, 24-hour sports network has now become more than ten popular channels across the world (including ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN News, ESPN Classic, and ESPN Deportes) and a highly-trafficked website (ESPN.com) devoted to delivering the latest sports news all day, every day. ESPN also boasts a very popular, bi-weekly magazine.
In the short term (10-15 years), ESPN will continue to dominate for three simple reasons.
1. Distribution. ESPN’s reach is massive, on and offline. As mentioned, they have more than ten sports networks across the world, as well as ESPN.com (nearly 5 million unique visitors in the month of January), and a big-time magazine. ESPN has also delved into the world of social media, with more than a half million combined Facebook fans and Twitter followers. It’s hard to beat that kind of power.
2. Access. ESPN reporters and employees often obtain breaking sports news first, because people (athletes, agents, PR agencies, etc) know ESPN has the most reach and the most credibility. ESPN has built a strong reputation over the years of being the first to break news. At this point, even if they aren’t first, they often times get credit because they are so mainstream.
3. Culture. Most sports fans watch at least one airing of SportsCenter or check ESPN.com at least once per day. In our culture, even people who couldn’t care less about sports know about ESPN. Ask those same people what YardBarker or FanHouse is, and they won’t have the slightest idea. ESPN has dominated for too long to die so quickly.
In the long term, I think ESPN is in some trouble. They have made significant strides to be more social. Most on-air talent and many shows have social media accounts and interact nicely. For example, Pardon The Interruption asks Twitter followers to suggest topics on a daily basis. It’s not their fault that they’re in trouble, they just are. In a nutshell, it comes down to the argument that mainstream media is dying. In ten or fifteen years, traditional journalists and reporters will be replaced by bloggers. Cable television will collapse. Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
There are too many talented and knowledgeable sports professionals and content creators (e.g. SportsNetworker) outside of ESPN for them to not be in trouble. Pretty soon, there will be a web version of SportsCenter that is a hell of a lot more interactive than ESPN’s version will be. ESPN is a slow-moving corporation. I just feel like they won’t be able to keep up with the times.
What about the argument that in ten or fifteen years, athletes, teams, and leagues will have no reason to feed ESPN any information? If OchoCinco (hypothetically, obviously he won’t be playing in ten years) wants to do a news conference, he’ll turn to Ustream or the OCNN to send out his message. Not ESPN. Sure, ESPN aggregates sports information, and does it well. But that might not be the case down the line.
These are very much scrambled thoughts. Obviously, who knows what ESPN will look like in the future? What do you think? What does the future of sports media look like?
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About Sam Taggart
Sam is a Creative Strategist for VaynerMedia, a social media agency based in New York City. Sam previously worked as an Account Executive for the New York Jets as well as the New Jersey Nets and spent time working with former NBA player Jalen Rose as well as NFL safety Kerry Rhodes. He now focuses on creative strategy across VaynerMedia's portfolio. You can follow Sam at http://twitter.com/gosam & visit VaynerMedia at http://www.vaynermedia.com.
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ESPN leaves a VERY bad taste in my mouth. Being Canadian, I may not see ESPN and ESPN2 everywhere like my American brothers, but I have the same access to the internet and go on ESPN.com every now and then.
Keep in mind even BEFORE all the social media craze and the fact that Allen Iverson could announce his new contract on twitter and all that jazz, I already had this thought:
Who the hell is Chad Ford and why should I pay to read his stuff? In my humble opinion, he may be a terrific writer and deserves whatever accolades he receives, but in my mind, he is just another DJ (to steal Gary V's term) for sports news. Information is free, and I'd rather hear your opinion than his because in my mind, it's just as valid and I don't have to whip out my visa.
There are a lot of schmucks out there (even those who's fulltime job IS to cover sports), but there are also a lot of valid sports people within forums, chatrooms, so on so forth and their thoughts and opinions are just as valuable to me.
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