There has been much discussion in recent weeks about ESPN’s subscriber losses and how that may be affecting the company. The network is currently in just 92.9 million homes, well below 100.1 million four years ago this month, and the smallest number in nine years — since 91.0 million in July 2006.
The significant drop comes at a time when ESPN has made various cost-cutting moves. The network cut ties with three prominent on-air personalities (though it has also re-signed several others), and decided against an announced move of Mike & Mike in the Morning to New York City. Parent company Disney reportedly wants the network to tighten its leash, and the days of big contracts for big names are at least temporarily over. Yet for all the headlines, such moves would seem to have little impact on TV viewers. Mike and Mike is simply staying put in Bristol, and ESPN’s departed stars — Keith Olbermann, Colin Cowherd and Bill Simmons — barely registered in the ratings. The last time Olbermann, The Herd, and The Grantland Basketball Hour aired on the same day (May 7), they combined for just 661,000 viewers.
More interesting are two other moves ESPN has made in recent months — opting to simulcast its prized NFL Wild Card Game on ABC and adding a new primetime package of NBA games on the network.
Beyond the much-discussed financial impact, another side effect of ESPN’s subscriber losses has been a widening gap with ABC. One of the “big three” broadcast networks, ABC is in 116.4 million TV homes — nearly 24 million more than ESPN. It is the widest gulf between the two networks in at least a decade. Even in 2006, when ESPN was in fewer homes than it is today, ABC’s advantage was 19 million (110.2M to 91.0M). It is also a substantially wider gap than four years ago, when the networks were separated by 16 million homes (115.9M for ABC and 100.1M for ESPN).
While the primary rationale behind the shift of sporting events from ABC to ESPN was that younger viewers could not tell the difference, the fact that ESPN was in so many homes was another plus in the network’s favor. Crossing the 100 million threshold made ESPN a virtual peer of the broadcast networks, especially given the trend of seemingly exponential growth. Now, putting an event on ESPN rather than ABC means sacrificing nearly 10 million more homes than it did four years ago, at a time when cable appears to be in decline.
Perhaps that explains why ESPN, after years of starving ABC of major sporting events, has started to bolster the offerings on its broadcast sibling. Having exclusive rights to an NFL playoff game was a major milestone for ESPN and cable generally. Going back on that after one year was a surprising move, and a telling one. While January’s Cardinals/Panthers Wild Card Game was a major success for ESPN — ranking among the ten most-watched cable programs ever — it was also the NFL’s lowest rated playoff game in at least 17 years. If the NFL has the kind of relationship with ESPN that is so often suggested, one can imagine ESPN executives heard from the league about those numbers.
As far as the NBA, ESPN went thirteen years without making any changes to its broadcast package. From Michael Jordan’s final season through LeBron James’ 12th, ABC aired games on Sunday afternoons during the regular season — and that was it. Out of the blue, ESPN announced this month that ABC would begin airing an eight-game Saturday night package next season, a move that had been suggested as long ago as the 2007 writers’ strike. The new schedule will put 16 total games on ABC, one more than the minimum 15 permitted under the contract. While that does not sound like much, keep in mind ABC held strictly to the 15-game minimum each of the previous five seasons, even in years when the NBA did exceptionally well in the ratings.
Two moves do not equal a trend, but they are so out of character with how ESPN has treated ABC in recent years that they are worth noting.
They are also in keeping with a broader reversal in the broadcast-to-cable shift. After ESPN put the entire Women’s World Cup on cable in 2007 and 2011, Fox Sports aired 16 matches on the FOX broadcast network this year. The final on FOX had 25.4 million viewers, nearly double ESPN’s 13.5 million in 2011. After ESPN put just three NASCAR races per year on ABC from 2010-14, NBC will air seven this year — including the season finale from Homestead, which has not aired on broadcast TV since 2009. ESPN has just one more year of airing the full British Open, which returns to broadcast in 2017 under the R&A’s new agreement with NBC. On a lower level, the NHRA will leave its ESPN deal after this season to join Fox Sports, which plans to put four events per year on broadcast. Both the R&A and the NHRA ended their ESPN deals a year early.
ESPN’s subscriber loss was not responsible for those moves — ESPN was still in 98.6 million homes when FIFA joined FOX in October 2011 — but it seems clear that with at least a few partners, the prestige of being on ESPN is trumped by the exposure of broadcast television.
As is usually the case with ESPN, there is the risk of reading too much into a few negative stories and assuming the network is in dire straits. ESPN still has the complete College Football Playoff through 2026, with January’s inaugural edition scoring cable’s three largest audiences ever. It still has Monday Night Football through 2021, which is a big cable draw despite middling ratings and an annually poor schedule. Next month, it will air the complete U.S. Open tennis tournament for the first time, one of three tennis majors it carries start to finish.
However, it can be hardly disputed that the network is not quite as powerful a competitor to the broadcast networks as it was four years ago. The fact that it is throwing any crumbs at all to ABC is a good indication, as is the fact that several events once exclusive to the network are back on over-the-air TV. One could argue that for the first time in some years, it is a step down from its broadcast rivals.
(Current ESPN estimates via TV By the Numbers; 2011 ESPN estimates via Sports Business Daily [July], [October]; May 7 ESPN viewership via Sports TV Ratings)
