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Bill Simmons Says ESPN Blew It By Not Embracing Tech (cnbc.com)
An anonymous reader shares an article: ESPN's problem isn't competition over content: They didn't position themselves for a future where cord cutting was a reality, according to former ESPN personality Bill Simmons. "They didn't see a lot of this coming," said Simmons. "They didn't see cord cutting coming. They weren't ready for it. A lot of decisions were made based on subs staying at a certain level. They had to realize they were a technology company. The ones winning are now Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, Hulu. ESPN should have been in that mix, but they're in Bristol. They should have had a place in Silicon Valley. That was their biggest mistake." ESPN is far from over, Simmons points out. Though it may make less money in the future, it has such strong cable deals, he said. "Everybody in here was paying $7 for ESPN whether they watched or not," he said. Simmons left ESPN in May 2015 after a public breakup, and signed a deal for an HBO series called "Any Given Wednesday" shortly after. The HBO show was cancelled in November 2016. Simmons also launched a new website called The Ringer in 2016. Also read Bloomberg's profile of executives at the company: ESPN Has Seen the Future of TV and They're Not Really Into It.
Of the ~$28/month that cable companies pay for their basic basket of content, over $8/month goes to ESPN and neither the cable company nor end customer has a say in the matter.
ESPN Has Seen the Future of TV and They're Not Really Into It.
Then fade away into the scrapheap of tech history along with cable. No one is going to miss you, no one owes you a living. There's a whole generation coming up that's never even heard of you.
Funny how cable seems to see itself as so much more self-important than it really is.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
ESPN?
What's that?
ESPN blew it when they went aggressively progressive in their commentary and corporate statements. Sure, it made both ESPN subscribers in SF very happy, but the first post is typical of lefty big city dwellers.
ESPN's audience 2 years ago was something like 65-35 conservative (including a lot of folks who kept cable just to keep ESPN). Well, they certainly got rid of that "deplorable" majority of their subscribers, didn't they? Perhaps focusing entirely on pleasing the crowd you have cocktail parties with is a mistake for a nationwide business, just as it was for a Democratic presidential candidate?
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
ESPN decided to focus more on political statements than on pure sport culture, which may have given them a bump in viewership for a while, but its not going to sustain interest. 3 months of analysis about who is standing during the national anthem is enough to drive the most avid sports enthusiast away.
Remember when commercials only came every 1/4 hour, and were fairly short in duration?
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
A sports channel for bars that are too high class to run Fox News.
Sports in general has gotten too political. The entire point of watching sports is to escape all the shitty stuff in real life.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
Man, you're so committed to the crap that gets fed to you on your email list that you're willing to face ridicule by positing a completely orthogonal theory to the TFA. I mean, fuck Bill Simmons, he only worked there, right?
Kudos to your brass balls.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
I'm more interested in the long term affects of how this is going to trickle down into affecting higher "education" budgets.
Back in the day people flocked to football games because it was seemingly the only thing to do. They graduated and continued watching their home team. Now there are multiple different events that students can participate in and follow. I had friends that skipped Homecoming to go to the LoL championships.
I think that NCAA Football and the NFL is in for a rude awakening as their profits have been propped up by people with cable that may not really watch the sport. There are only a few teams that are economically viable and that is with ESPN deals.
is this one: "Everybody in here was paying $7 for ESPN whether they watched or not."
And that's precisely why I will never, ever watch ESPN, nor any sport it signs a deal with -- even if they subsequently leave ESPN. I've lived in the USA for a bit over 18 years now, and paid for cable or satellite TV for all of that time. Let's assume that $7 figure applies for the whole of that time, and does so in 2017 dollars (so in then-dollars it was some much lower sum). I think that's a pretty safe assumption, and it says I've personally paid US$6,700+ into the pockets of ESPN and its affiliated sports, yet I've watched maybe between five and ten minutes of ESPN in the last couple of decades. At around US$900/minute, that's hands-down the most expensive entertainment of my life.
And it's also why I will never renew my cable or satellite TV subscription until a la carte is a thing. Nor will I sign up for any online service which doesn't either offer a la carte options, or which focuses solely on programming *I* am interested in. The likes of YouTube TV et al. which simply carry over these awful deals into the internet age hold no interest for me.
Let's see.... MTV used to play music videos, then got into reality tv. The weather channel used to have a person standing in front of a radar map, not you have to watch 10 minutes of "storm stories" to get your local weather. And ESPN forgot it was a sports network. In another industry, McDonalds seems to have forgotten it's core customer as well.... people wanting FAST food. If we wanted GOOD food, we wouldn't be here. Long gone are the days of walking into McD's and seeing what was on the line and getting that and getting out. They prefer just in time production model which makes we wait for a cheese burger behind the person who wanted a cheese burger w/o cheese and extra mustard. Like so many maturing companies, they have lost their direction.
Oh god shut the fuck up retard. I can;t wait until we have you peasants back to running plows through fields of your own shit.
Treating deplorables fairly has turned out to be a huge disaster luckily you all seem happy to embrace feudalism.
How nice to see a congressman posting on Slashdot. It's always humorous when the mask slips.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
I also remember TV series doing 26 episodes a season... and an hour TV show lasting 50 minutes, now down to 44 minutes. A lot commercial skipping eh?
If ESPN went OTT then all systems then get the right to move it to sports packs / hbo like pack / drop it on the spot. If they lose being forced into basic then they will lose subs big time.
No, I don't think that's accurate. ESPN just had a large number of layoffs again, and have actually started using programs from MLB Network to cut costs. ESPN's problem is paying massive fees for rights to broadcast certain things when it just didn't make sense.
Longhorn Network is a great example of this, betting on interest in a network primarily for University of Texas sports while showing games from a few smaller schools in the state. They've paid huge rights fees for the rights to college football and, to some extent, basketball from major conferences. They're also on the hook for huge deals with MLB, the NBA, and the NFL.
Every time those packages get renegotiated, the rates go up quite a bit, and the networks keep paying for them. They bet that advertisers would keep paying more to air commercials during those times and that cable companies would go along with raising subscription fees. ESPN bet on the advertising bubble and now they're regretting it.
This has little to do with politics, despite your attempt to turn it into a political discussion. Take your political trolling elsewhere. It's about advertising being less lucrative and cable companies becoming less willing to renegotiate subscriber fees. Charter, in particular, is concerned with keeping those fees down because they need to pay off the debt from the Time Warner Cable acquisition. At some point, networks need to quit driving up the prices for the rights to broadcast live sports, and refuse to bid any higher.
Microsoft giving tablets to the NFL and the broadcasters kept calling them iPads throughout the games?
.
The forced bundling made ESPN complacent about costs, and now ESPN is the most expensive cable channel, by a long shot. Many people no longer want to pay for ESPN. Talk about killing the goose that lays the golden eggs... that is ESPN's problem. Pure business greed,.
No, no, no. Nothing against Silicon Valley, but they don't need to be there. Nobody really does, except maybe some infrastructure people.
ESPN rejected tech because they were rejecting basic ideas like fairness and customers' desires. They were getting paid by non-users, so why should they think about the users? So they didn't. Their entire outlook on sales is to score bundling deals, to avoid the market while still getting paid by it.
Until they think of viewers as the customers, and become customer-oriented, you should expect them to be well behind everything else.
The not-seeing-things-coming aspect is particular silly. Even if it was true way back when, it's totally irrelevant by today. By 5 years ago they sure as hell must have seen that "cord cutting" was already here, whether they previously saw it coming or not. Had they reacted to this old news with the most basic common sense, once it was obvious and everyone had seen cord cutting, then you would be talking about their streaming offerings over the last 3 or 4 years.
Anything that doesn't conform to rigid conservative dogma gets excommunicated and called "progressive". It's really that simple.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
I also remember TV series doing 26 episodes a season... and an hour TV show lasting 50 minutes, now down to 44 minutes. A lot commercial skipping eh?
Damn, you're old! So am I. :)
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
TV and movies too. We rarely get entertaining stories anymore. Mostly just agendas and/or the director's personal issues, patched together with some CGI.
I was asking about concrete examples of what makes a sports TV channel "progressive" or not.
I don't respond to AC's.
I mean, fuck Bill Simmons, he only worked there, right?
Seems to me that the people who ran the place into the ground are the last ones we should look to for insight on how they fucked it up.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I was talking with my wife about this and I said in the last year (or whatever) my favorite TV show or movie had been Stranger Things. The show was nothing special, no fantastic plot or Terrible Secret of Space I hadn't seen before, and the acting was solid but not phenomenal. But it was a story, with a beginning, a middle, and an end, and characters with motivations that made sense. And no political commentary, it wasn't trying to teach me a story about racism in a small town or female empowerment, and no associated political controversy. It was just a coherent story about some people and some weird shit and that was enough to make it best of the year. And that's sad.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
Disney knows this. They've got a huge library of content, and love it when you consume it in different formats. They don't care if you buy it online, stream it, VHS, DVD, laser disc etc. Netflix and Amazon know this and adapted as demonstrated by their switch to original programming.
Notice how the VHS tape manufacturers are suffering or the companies that manufacture DVD discs? Technology changes and boom, nobody is buying VHS tapes any more.
BUT we're still watching disney films, and watching sports. ESPN should have fully embraced their ability to own content and then make that content (sports programming) on as many devices as possible. Sports are sports regardless of the platform i'm watching it on, just make it as easy as possible to watch it.
I'd much rather pay $15/month to get all of ESPN's programming than to have to buy season passes for NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL individually.
There aren't any, that's the point. All any TV network cares about is eyeballs and ad revenue. Trying to tie them down ideologically is a fruitless task.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
Which is disappointing because ESPN started as seeing a niche that could be filled and exploited (lack of Sports programming for non-major events). It's just what happens when you become overly-bloated and complacent.
By making a corporate statement about shit like the NC bathroom bill
Which they did because they think it's bad for business. Shockingly, they've been joined in this statement by many other large corporations.
BLM-affirming stuff some NFL team did
ie, not ESPN.
So, to recap: one mild corporate statement, and ESPN is now irredeemably "progressive", and further, that is the reason for their demise, not because (like many a fat corp before them), failing to anticipate that their rent-seeking strategy was not infinitely viable.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
Sure, if it was some nameless exec VP. But Simmons was talent, not management.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
I wasn't aware that ESPN made a corporate statement about the NC bathroom bill. All I can see if them reporting on it, since the NCAA refused to have championship games there until it was repealed.
What does an NFL player have to do with ESPN?
I'm still confused as to what ESPN did to be "aggressively progressive". Were they not supposed to report on NCAA's actions? Were they not supposed to report on the whole not standing during the national anthem thing? Does just reporting facts make an organization "aggressively progressive" in your mind (or the mind of other people)?
I don't respond to AC's.
Tech? What? ESPN blew it when they decided to push political propaganda on its audiences. I turn on sports to see sports, hear sports, and escape the pc garbage on most other channels. They were thinking they will dictate what the audiences will watch
Not the least of which was injecting political commentary every chance they got. Oh, and you know, not really showing "all-sports, all the time" anymore. Their base tuned out, and here they are. No sympathy from me, and no amount of tech can save you when you essentially give the middle finger to your bread and butter.
If you look at the average cable bill, a good chunk of it is just for the royalties for ESPN. And ESPN insists that it not be a premium channel - they want *everyone* to have it, and they want everyone to pay. And to top it off, they keep paying astronomical sums of money for the broadcast rights to all sorts of dumb things, and how do they make it back? By jacking the fees that the rest of us pay. If they want to take ESPN and make it a streaming service that you sign up for if you want it, I would be all for it. That's the direction that a lot of these things are going anyways,
While it's unfair to characterize espn's woes solely to their political agenda it also unfair no ignore the repercussions of that agenda. Cord cutting gave many people a choice to subscribe to espn instead of being bundled with every subscription. Espn's political agenda caused many people to devalue their product, no one wants to be preached to when they are trying to watch highlights.
Knowledge = Power
P= W/t
t=Money
Money = Work/Knowledge so the less you know the more you make
Pandering to people who don't have money is retarded when you want green money and not votes. People voted for trump because he lied and told them he could get them a job.
Why would anyone care about a group of people who don't have any money to spend and probably never will?
One might well imagine that ESPN would care about the money flowing in from actual subscribers, but the evidence clearly shows they didn't. Odd business plan, that.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
I guess you'd have to watch the commentary shows, then, to understand (there's a real difference between "commenting on" and "endorsing a side"). Not that I recommend it - your curiosity is better unsatisfied on this point.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
I would consider paying $7 a month to be able to stream ESPN channels over broadband. ESPN missed an opportunity and now they have been forced to cup personalities to address lost revenue due to cord cutting.
I remember when it was green screen text. No GUI. And it was uphill both ways. And you had to memorize a three foot thick stack of manuals -- which were bolted to a table in the computer room and could not be removed.
AARP is proposing a study of the environmental impact of young people's feet upon lawns.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
They cancelled Simmons' Any Given Wednesday. Damn, was actually a pretty good show when he had the correct guests.
There are enough venues for progressive (and conservative, for that matter, even though its not a factor in this instance) media to promote their agenda. I just want the ball-game score and the highlights. I don't want social commentary.
It's a reason that's been discussed on other forums. Pointing it out, even if orthogonal to the original article is still informative, because if it is true and the ESPN honchos continue to ignore it based on their internal echo-chamber idea of what they did wrong, they might fix the wrong thing. OTOH, the SJW-angle could be insignificant and they can save the network by making various technical adjustments and double down on the SJW content. They can hire Colin Kaepernick as a talk-show host.
We watch sports to get a break from politics, not to get more politics shoved down the throat. Would be great if people across the political spectrum could enjoy it together.
But they don't get it, not even WSJ seems to understand why people don't want to mix the two.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/t...
ESPN became a cable-television giant by offering wall-to-wall sports, so naturally the channel has increasingly chosen to offer political commentary. In a remarkable coincidence, its viewership has been declining. ESPN’s shrinking audience triggered layoffs of about 100 employees this week.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/t...
Bristol, Silicon Valley, whatever....it doesn't matter. Yes, ESPN messed up and there is still time to correct the ship because they still are the leader in US sports broadcasting. But location doesn't matter when you're setting up an online presence.
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
From Salon.com
Longtime ESPN anchor Linda Cohn argued that her network’s alleged liberal bent scared off some of its viewers and subscribers, leading to this week’s “bloodbath” in Bristol.
During a radio interview on 77 WABC Thursday, Cohn addressed the mass layoffs at her network, which saw over 100 on-air talent get the pink slip this week — including a former co-anchor of Cohn’s. The sportscaster candidly blamed the firings on “bad decision making” by ESPN executives.
Talking head Bernard McGuirk, one of the hosts of “The Bernie and Sid Show,” asked Cohn if the “whole Kaepernick thing,” and Caitlyn Jenner winning an award at the ESPYs, perhaps explained the network’s dwindling audience.
“There seems to be a lot of folks that have distaste for the way ESPN goes about some of their programming, and some of their promotions, when socially folks don’t accept these things,” McGuirk said.
“That is definitely a percentage of it,” Cohn immediately agreed, according to the New York Post. “I don’t know how big a percentage, but if anyone wants to ignore that fact, they’re blind,” she said.
From ESPN.com
http://www.espn.com/blog/ombud...
Jim Brady, Public Editor Dec 1, 2016
The 2016 presidential election season has been one most of us will never forget. The tone has been ugly, the controversies endless, the coverage unrelenting. Our social media feeds are full of politically charged statements, and what dialogue does exist between differing sides more often resembles a WWE match than nuanced debate.
Thankfully, I get to write about ESPN, where the focus on sports means I never have to deal with politics.
Ah, if only that were true.
As it turns out, ESPN is far from immune from the political fever that has afflicted so much of the country over the past year. Internally, there’s a feeling among many staffers -- both liberal and conservative -- that the company’s perceived move leftward has had a stifling effect on discourse inside the company and has affected its public-facing products. Consumers have sensed that same leftward movement, alienating some.
Before digging in, one quick clarification: I’m not here to advocate that ESPN take any particular political position or lean a certain way. It’s not my place to make that recommendation, and no one would listen anyway. This is more about the impact that taking a more identifiable political stance -- which I do believe ESPN has done -- is having on the company.
For most of its history, ESPN was viewed relatively apolitically. Its core focus was -- and remains today, of course -- sports. Although the nature of sports meant an occasional detour into politics and culture was inevitable, there wasn’t much chatter about an overall perceived political bias. If there was any tension internally, it didn’t manifest itself publicly.
That has changed in the past few years, and ESPN staffers cite several factors. One is the rise of social media, which has led to more direct political commentary by ESPN employees, even if not delivered via the network’s broadcast or digital pipes. Another is ESPN's increase in debate-themed shows, which encourage strong opinions that are increasingly focusing on the overlap between sports and politics.
There have also been concrete actions that have created a perception that ESPN has chosen a political side, such as awarding Caitlyn Jenner the Arthur Ashe Courage Award at the 2015 ESPYS despite her not having competed athletically for decades, the company’s decision to move a golf tournament away from a club owned by presidential candidate Donald Trump and a perceived inequity in how punishments for controversial statements were meted out.
Many ESPN employees I talked to -- including liberals and conservatives, most of whom preferred to speak on background -- worry that the company’s politics have become a little too obvious, empowering those who feel as if they’re in line with the company’s position and driving underground those who don’t.
But, in talking to people in the course of reporting this piece, it is clear that ESPN has a challenge in front of it. I don’t think the answer is to try to stifle those with strong viewpoints; rather, it’s to make sure a broader range of voices are heard.
Why, some might ask? Because, at heart, ESPN is a business. And based on a Gallup survey on political affiliation from mid-September, 44 percent of the country identifies itself as either “Republican” or “leans Republican.” That’s less than the 49 percent that identifies itself as “Democrat” or “leans Democrat,” but not by much.
I guess you haven't heard. Season 2 will reveal that Gaia has finally snapped, and is punishing humanity for polluting the earth. The kids will join up with Captain Planet and the Planeteers to save the world from the eco-villains and restore Gaia to loving benevolence.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
Yeah, I liked that one. It's a shame it got so overhyped though. Not sure I would have appreciated it as much, had I watched it after all of the buzz. But I guess all of that buzz underscores what you were saying.
The only other show that I've been impressed with lately has been Better Call Saul. It may not be as fast moving as its predecessor (perhaps a disappointment for some), but the story draws you in, there's no agenda and I'm not frustrated with how stupid all of the characters are. The characters are all different, but you actually get a feel what it's like to be in their shoes, rather than just siding with one over another.
That's why I watch porn. I get to see someone else getting fucked for a change.
#DeleteFacebook
Music dropped in popularity as home video, video games and 24/7 TV ate away at people's free time (longer work hours in bad economies didn't help). Folks had more places to get the weather and didn't need that guy and his radar map as much so ratings fell. Minimum wage went up (marginally, but up all the same) and the cost of food shot way up pushing McDonald's into the fast casual market whether they wanted to or not. ESPN's in the same boat as music: fighting for attention.
There's been a lot of changes in the last 20 years. Nearly all of them for the worse. These companies are trying to adapt best that can. Lots of them can't. Not won't. Can't. The thing they used to do has been made obsolete or just plain marginalized. The world doesn't stay the same. I don't understand why folks don't seem to get that. Seems like a basic thing that we get upset when stuff changes and try our damnedest to deny the change happened in the first place.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
One might well imagine that ESPN would care about the money flowing in from actual subscribers, but the evidence clearly shows they didn't. Odd business plan, that.
The sitution as usual, doesn't have one single cause. And people with an axe to grind will always find a wy to make it about their cause.
This was fairly simple. It cost people a lot of money to have ESPN on their cable Almost all had to pay, even if they didn't ever watch ESPN. Cord Cutting cost them a lot of customers.
Then there was the content. ESPN on television wasn't all that great to watch. Poker is not a spectator sport.
They opened a Southeast Conference specific channel. This makes no sense, especially as the SEC was losing dominance in football.
They are trying to appeal to younger people. Many of the remaining people on cable don't want politics mixed with their sports. Now for my opinions, with some facts mixed in. ESPN has become really boring. I used to listen to the radio, and still do a little. But aside from Dan LeBatard in the morning - a show that traditionalists hate, and Stephan Smith in the evening - Who I don't think anyone likes because it's yelling mostly, everyone else has been mostly talking about football, and when I say football, it's quarterbacks, and drafting quarterbacks, and then they turn into talking about Tom Brady. Seems like every damn story turns into Tom Brady. In the end, their product just isn't all that great.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
I was asking about concrete examples of what makes a sports TV channel "progressive" or not.
Some of their announcers and some athletes made it clear they didn't like Trump. Some were women. Dunno if tou consider that concrete or not.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
It's funny.. that think called "choice". You don't like the commentary shows but keep watching them then complain about progressive media.
I don't like them because I want to watch sports, all kinds of sports, not just basketball, baseball, and football.
Instead of whining about it, I voted with my wallet.
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
ESPN can complain about whatever but the main thing is they are in trouble because people don't want to watch them and when you ask a large portion of those people they make comments along the line of having to suffer through the political garbage they keep bringing up.
For example and why the subject, ESPN was in the background at work and one of the show started to talk about hillarys speech from yesterday.
$...any ?'s.
when they drastically changed their web site into one of those annoying infinite scrolling sites with stupid videos all over the place.
>We watch sports to get a break from politics
Suit yourself. I shoot zombies. If the zombies were playing American football, I might be encourages to aim better.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
There you go, Hollywood. I just gave you some ideas for a Captain Planet remake movie.
Oh dear. This might actually be happening.
One thing intriguing to Paramount and Appian Way was the subversive take by Matt and Powell on the material: Sources say the story takes place years after the adventures of the show, with the Captain now a washed-up has-been who needs the kids more than they need him.
Wow. You try to parody Hollywood, and they just outdo you.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
Simmons is also the kind of unmitigated retard who thinks putting a building in a location makes all the difference. Seriously, ESPN failed because it didn't have an office in SV? You don't need an office in SV; you need a business strategy.
Next, Simmons will try to become a billionaire by moving across the street from Warren Buffet.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
Seriously, ESPN failed because it didn't have an office in SV?
Nice trick, turn one of his points into his main point, and then make fun of him him for it.
Then again, speaking as someone who's run a business for 12 years, location, sadly, is quite important. He might be on to something here.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
Location is important when your primary market is affected by location. Got a store? Needs to be accessible.
As a content distributor, you have viewers. Your business partners include rebroadcasters (clients) and producers (vendors). Viewers are all over the place and expect you to get content to them; clients and vendors are generally going to expect you to come to them. Your other clients--the advertisers--will mostly call you to bid for a spot, then Fedex you the film (or transfer it via FTP nowadays).
You can have a major network broadcaster in frigging Baltimore if you want. For that matter, you can have a video game studio or a security consultation firm wherever you want to stick it. It doesn't honestly matter when your interactions are primarily unconstrained by geographic region.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
Spoken like a true geek. And, like you, I wish it were the case that accomplishment and hard work and innovation were more important than things like proper location and networking and face to face meetings. But they're not, mainly cuz boomers still run the world. Shit, I'm just happy I was able to dump my fax line 5 years ago.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
I didn't say anything about hard work or innovation; I said your market isn't people walking through your doors if you're not Best Buy.
Here's a hint: those examples weren't made-up. Some of the largest American game studios are in retarded places like Baltimore (Firaxis), Santa Clarita (WayForward), or Austin, TX (home of Retro Studios, owned by Nintendo). The biggest broadcaster in America is in Baltimore; it was built from a one-station operation in Baltimore.
Many of these places are in population centers, and so have access to population. Population means labor, and also infrastructure; infrastructure means tech industry labor, because infrastructure includes telecomm. We've got eleven game programming studios in Baltimore and a few of them are actually big operations; Baltimore is, historically, a big industrial city, not the East Coast Silicon Valley.
Like ESPN, broadcasting corporations both license and produce content, and they distribute and sublicense for rebroadcast. Face-to-face meetings actually come here, because our local big broadcaster has its own helipad and, besides, has more negotiating power than pretty much every other party.
Comcast's HQ is Philadelphia, PA; Verizon's is in Basking Ridge, NJ; DirecTV is in El Segundo, CA; Dish Network is in Englewood, CO; Apple is in Cupertino, CA; Microsoft is in Redmond, WA; Google is in Mountain View, CA. Google and Apple are actually based in Silicon Valley; these other big nationals aren't--not even Microsoft.
It's cool that you have a snowball stand near a school bus station and make a lot of money from middle-school kids; Amazon (Seattle, WA) sells to people all over the world, and doesn't even have a warehouse in most cities. Location only matters to retail stores; if your customers aren't walking in your door to buy your stuff, they don't care where you are.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
I think you're right.... AND the tv networks do a litle picture in a picture showing the closing credits of one episode and the opening of the next. By overlapping those two incoming / outgoing programs, they get to sell an extra 45 seconds of commercials. I swear this is just like the saying "the beatings will continue until morale improves". We don't like commercials and skip them in DVR.... and they scheme how to play more commercials.
jesusfuckingchrist nerds are the worst.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
I'm a business nerd and an economics nerd. They're two vastly-different things.
You're trying to scream "LOCATION LOCATION LOCATION!!" as if you don't actually understand business. Maybe if you were a business nerd you would understand anything I said; instead you're just going, "Lulz, I put a shop where people walk, and they walk in! LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION!"
Self-employed people with toy companies who think they're "a business" are the worst.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
I'm a business nerd and an economics nerd. They're two vastly-different things.
Sorry, I was addressing the pedantic nerd, not the other two. Better luck next time!
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
Fair enough. You're still wrong and you still haven't demonstrated how you're not wrong other than going "DUHRR NUH UH U DUM". You seem to be blowing hot air out your ass.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
Took you all weekend for this shitnugget? This was never about being right or wrong, this is about you making mountains out of molehills, an aptitude you have shown tremendous proficiency in. But pedantic nerds never understand that part.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
Your entire opening rebuttal was that location matters so very, very much.
speaking as someone who's run a business for 12 years, location, sadly, is quite important. He might be on to something here.
It's been an argument back and forth about location not being important if your office location isn't your major interaction point with, you know, damned near everyone. Moving the goalposts now that you lost?
Took you all weekend for this shitnugget?
No, I studied German, wrote a (very poorly-written) speech, and fed kittens during the weekend. Slashdot is a 9-5 site; nobody checks this shit from home.
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Your entire opening rebuttal
Ah I see your problem. You turned 'he might be onto something here' into an assault on your business nerdery. Put your dick away already.
Moving the goalposts now that you lost?
Says the guy who's twice avoided accusations of using strawman arguments. Good one.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!