ESPN Ratings Hit 41 Year Low

[Look Up]

Lack of live sports to show plus abandoning sports coverage for activism is making this iconic brand a pass for former viewers.

Their highest rated show, "First Take", was the 93rd highest ranked show on cable. That's amazing if you think about it.

ESPN Hits All-Time 41 Year Ratings Low As WokeCenter On Steroids Takes Over

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[Lt Dan]

This should have happened sooner
ESPN has been trash for a long time

 

[its josh]

Strangely, I've watched more ESPN the last few months than I have the last 5+ years. The Last Dance, some of the Lance Armstrong special, the Long Gone Summer.

 

[ForumNamePending]

"Stick to sports" argues the sports pundit who himself doesn't stick to sports.

 

[Yukon Joe]

Pretty sure the decline in ratings is because of the whole "no sports" thing, rather than the "they talk too much about politics", which people have been complaining about for forever.

 

[Rpenny]

are we shocked by this

 

[Claypool]

Pretty sure the decline in ratings is because of the whole "no sports" thing, rather than the "they talk too much about politics", which people have been complaining about for forever.

ESPN ratings have been declining steadily for awhile now. Having no sports escalated the problem, though.

 

[93LEAFS]

Who the hell wants to watch sports-media primarily talk about non-sports things. I know outside of some of the documentaries (The Last Dance, etc) I have no interest in watching any sports media. I'd never watch First-Take in the first place, but hearing them talk about loosely related sports stories sounds even more insufferable than it was.

 

[Ace Card Bedard]

I used to watch sportscenter all the time back in the 90's.
I doubt I've watched even once in the last 20 years.

 

[DaveG]

Pretty sure the decline in ratings is because of the whole "no sports" thing, rather than the "they talk too much about politics", which people have been complaining about for forever.

Pretty much this. Can't say I've watched a second of ESPN outside of the Lance 30 for 30 since everything shut down. Like what's the f***ing point? I'm all for calling out ESPN when they get political. But this ain't it. I mean shit I'm amazed they even had 50k watching with literally no sports that are their properties going on currently.

 

[Howboutthempanthers]

I moved on from them as the leader in sports at the end of the 80s. And stopped watching all together when I lost interest in basketball towards the end of the 90s. I can't say I regret that decision. They seemed to have gone into a realm that I have no interest in.
Perhaps they need a new identity. I probably will never watch them again for more than an occasional look. But maybe they can build back up a larger audience.

 

[Canes]

Yet they're still going to keep increasing channel subscriber fees while putting more content behind their streaming services like ESPN+

Honestly it's one of the companies I'd love to see fail at this point

 

[HisIceness]

Their general content sucks aside from 30 for 30. Live sporting events are fine but their talking head shows are just not that interesting. Case in point, SportsNation was supposed to cater to my age-range when it debuted in 2009 but I found the show to be more MTV/TMZ-like and less SportsCenter/PTI so I stopped watching it. But as time went on instead of keeping the news and information segmentsthat I liked, I got the impression that they enjoyed catering towards the TMZ side of things. And then suddenly their talent started developing TMZ-like personalities when they didn't before. And then their general content started revolving around about 5 things, namely LeBron, Lakers, Michael Jordan (who last played in 2003!), Tom Brady, and Aaron Rodgers. I don't know if SportsNation is/was the root cause of their downfall, but I started noticing the network was making a change for the worse around the time that idiotic show debuted.

They used to be something a sports fan couldn't live without, to something a sports fans might just glance at once in awhile. Such is life in the internet/smartphone era I guess but they are also their own worst enemy.

 

[Mrfenn92]

Used to be must see watching for me. Love the 30 for 30 and the shorts they do.
Overall the death of Espn for me was when they went into yelling hot take shows back with bayless.
Didn't mind PTI, but adding around the horn and all the other clown car shows just sucked.

I'll watch actual sports on their
channels, nothing else more.

 

[Voight]

Their coverage of games is significantly behind the other networks. Thats the main problem.

 

[LeHab]

Strangely, I've watched more ESPN the last few months than I have the last 5+ years. The Last Dance, some of the Lance Armstrong special, the Long Gone Summer.

This historic low is for a single day - last week Wednesday:

On Wednesday ESPN’s studio programming, which has become MSESPN’s WokeCenter on steroids 24/7, hit a 41 year ratings low. That is, in the entire history of the network existing, it has never had lower overall studio ratings than it did this week.

 

[SupremeNachos]

Unless their ratings completely tank they will not be going anywhere. Having Disney as a parent gives them a huge leash.

 

[awfulwaffle]

I used to watch sportscenter all the time back in the 90's.
I doubt I've watched even once in the last 20 years.

I don't know why they had to change what sportscenter was. It was the perfect show for sports fans. They had such a winning concept, and screwed it up.

 

[DaveG]

I don't know why they had to change what sportscenter was. It was the perfect show for sports fans. They had such a winning concept, and screwed it up.

they decided that fans wanted more TMZ style content for some reason. They decided to latch on to certain players to the point that it was completely nauseating and moved away from a highlights and analysis focus that they had been previously some time between when I started college (late 90s) and left college (2003). The focus on LeBron early in his career even back to his last year of high school was the canary in the coal mine and by the time Tebus became a star at Florida it was in full swing.

 

[tomd]

ESPN needs to realize that people don't want to see politics when they turn on a sports channel.

 

[jprenkert]

I think in the last 10 year ive only ever watched ESPN was for 30 for 30 and for the last 5, I have just watched them off of Hulu, or ESPN+. Used to love the Sportscenters in the mid to late 90's when you could get info on everything going on. Would sit for hours during the summer watching it endlessly. Loved the trivia at the end of episodes and the personalities.
PTI was cool when it first came out but got stall, cold pizza was interesting at first also. But miss the coverage of all sports and not just names. I left when all you heard about was Yankees, Red Sox, Lakers, Lebron, Hot NFL team/topic. Don't miss it and when I have see a clip from current Sportcenters, it really sucks.

 

[Long Live Lyle]

I don't know why they had to change what sportscenter was. It was the perfect show for sports fans. They had such a winning concept, and screwed it up.

Part of the issue is changing media. In the 90s/early 2000s, you pretty much had to go to SportsCenter for highlights. Now you don't. You go to the websites/apps of the respective teams/leagues you're interested in. ESPN correctly realized they had to change the model a bit. I do think SVP's SC is a pretty good example of how it can be done; it's less about highlights, but still has interesting content, interviews and occasional analysis. ESPN's problem is the "occasional" in that preceding sentence. Overall, there are too many "hot takes" and not good, objective analysis on too many of the shows. Semi-relatedly, the network talks about the same stuff OVER AND OVER AND OVER. I mean, how many times do you need to debate LeBron vs. MJ? How many times do you need to talk about the Dallas Cowboys? It gets stale. I think Stephen A. is funny. It's low-hanging fruit humor, but it makes me laugh. But I don't need/choose to waste my time watching ESPN for the best 30-second clip of his schtick that day, I can just find it on Twitter/YouTube later.

It's hard to know exactly where the blame should be most placed. There are some things outside of ESPN's control (e.g., the rise of the Internet as a general trend, Coronavirus as a specific incident, etc.). But they certainly don't help themselves, either.

 

[Anthony5967]

ESPN needs to realize that people don't want to see politics when they turn on a sports channel.

and LeBron 24/7.

 

[tomd]

and LeBron 24/7.

Yeah, can't wait until he retires...enough of him already!

 

[Breakers]

They SUCK at producing content