Sports Entertainment

Guest Post by The Zman

Last week, the Wisconsin athletic director sent out a letter to supporters that the university would lose 60-70 million dollars this year due to the reduction in football games being played in the fall. If the season is cancelled, the losses will top 100 million just for the fall. That may be an exaggeration, but there is no question that a cancellation of the college football season will cost the big-time college programs tens of millions in revenue. It is a billion-dollar industry.

ZeroHedge pointed out that ESPN has a billion dollars in ad space to sell for this fall’s college football season. They also have ad space for other sports as well, but college football is the prime mover of ad space. It is unlikely that ad buyers will want to buy ads when ESPN is running replays of card games this fall. ESPN’s primary income stream is mandatory cable fees, they net close to nine billion in fees every year, but a billion dollars in ad revenue still counts for something.

Of course, everyone knows no one is watching ESPN at the moment, but that has no impact on the cable fees. The way it works is a service like Hulu of Comcast pays ESPN nine dollars per month for each subscriber to their service. These deals are not contingent on viewership. As ZeroHedge points out, the language in these deals does not require the content provider to deliver particular content. As long as ESPN is beaming something, they get paid for it.

Even so, the mass disruption of sports is going to have an impact on the economic model of professional sports. Out of work people will begin to look at that cable bill and wonder if it makes sense. Cable providers will begin to look for ways to get out from under their ESPN deal. For its part, ESPN will not be paying the leagues for content when the leagues are shutdown. Like the economy as a whole, professional sport is about to experience an unprecedented jolt.

Way back when the lock downs were on the table, the sober minded warned that you can’t lock everyone in their homes and not have consequences. The modern economy is a highly complicated balancing act that has evolved to produce increasingly efficiency, along with the retail excess. Even small disruptions can upset the balance within supply chains resulting in unexpected outcomes. Start turning off large bits of it and before long the whole thing starts to crash.

The first glimpse of this may be what is happening with sports. Major League Baseball is the first to re-open, but it is quickly becoming a disaster. The empty parks make the television product less than compelling and now games are being cancelled as players test positive for the virus. The NBA is struggling to keeps its knuckleheads inside the compound where they plan to play their games. The NFL is seeing droves of players sit out the upcoming season for fear of the virus.

The thing no one dares mention is the impact this lock down is having on interest in spectator sports. Being a sports fan is like being a smoker. Part of the dependency is the ritual and structure of it. The smoker takes a break every hour to smoke, collect his thoughts and get the nicotine hit. The football fan has their weekend in the fall, where they have scheduled social activities around games. Like the smoker, the sports fan builds their life around the habit.

People who quit a vice like smoking or drinking note that they also quit the social scene that goes with it. They lose touch with Sally from accounting who they used to take smoke breaks with every day. The people at the bar are no longer a part of their life. That’s what will happen with sports. Those weekends in the fall will be filled with other things and after the withdrawal pains subside, the habit will be lost. People who cut cable know this experience. In time, you don’t miss it.

This is not idle speculation. It has been known for a long time in the sports world that the recovery time after a work stoppage is very long. When a sports league shuts down due to labor strife, it takes years for the fans to return. It’s not because they are mad at the greedy players and owners. The fans simply find other things to do with their time and many of them drift away entirely. Millions have probably broken the habit already and that is before the hate whitey lectures were added.

There is one final piece to this puzzle. The growth of sports entertainment has tracked the arc of the Baby Boom generation. Look at attendance figures for sports in the 1960’s and 1970’s, before Boomers were dominating the market. Ball parks rarely sold out and the audience for televised product was limited. In the 1980’s as the Boomers took over the marketplace, sports boomed. When they could play tennis, professional tennis was huge. Then it was golf that had a boom.

The fact is, the sports entertainment model was built for and on the Baby Boomer generation, which is now entering its power down cycle. Boomers are retiring and that means down-sizing their lives. The major sports leagues are facing a demographic reality that cannot be overcome with happy talk about diversity. Non-whites don’t spend like whites and they cannot sustain an economic model built for whites. What happened to California is what is coming for sports entertainment.

This demographic cliff has been known to the sports leagues for a long time, which is why they happily throw in with the hate-whitey stuff. Sure, many of the principles really do hate white people, but much of it driven by the carnival barker’s belief in his ability to will an audience into existence. They really do think they can cast the same spell on the brown hordes that they cast on white people and get the same result. The virus panic and cultural revolution will put those theories to the test.

It is hard to see how the old sports entertainment model survives the current crisis. That doe not mean these leagues fold or that sports entertainment dies out. It’s just that the old model was built for an old America, one that no longer exists. On the other hand, sports entertainment has been a vital part of keeping whitey under control. Something will have to be done to reestablish the mind control device known as sportsball. Perhaps part of woke America will be mandatory sports watching by recalcitrant whites.

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James
James

Wow,this is such a bummer!

Those that watched sports perhaps will go for a walk/go fishing/go hunting/take up a martial arts class or other sport where the actually are a participant,the horrors!

oldtimer505
oldtimer505

There is always the possibility that everyone will be playing cops and robbers in the coming months and there will be a new normal at hand. Just sayin

Bilco
Bilco

I was one of those boomers that grew up and into retirement watching sports. I cut the cable tv years ago,and watched sports through various free streaming sites. I have not missed it since it was gone. Then I tried to re-embrace it when it came back(except the NBA) I just could not take the social justice bull shit. So I dropped an e-mail to both the MLB and the NFL. Letting them know how disappointed I was in how they embraced the Marxist BLM,and other assorted left wing lunacy. Doubt it will make much difference in changing things. Will put it someones head as to why I told them both goodbye.

Dutchman
Dutchman

I’m a ‘boomer’. Sports sucks. It’s a brainwash. Never gave them a dime. Never watch any of their games on TV.

I’m amazed how people follow this shit.

Glock 1911 M1A .308
Glock 1911 M1A .308

The defacto defunding of these destructive devices known as institutions of higher learning. Boycott college sports to stop the spread of the cancer known as communism!!!

BUCKHED/BUY MORE AMMO
BUCKHED/BUY MORE AMMO

Let’s hope the NFL will mean…Not For Long….soon !

musket
musket

espn is well on the way to killing college sports the same way they have professional sports. This years college slate across the board will shake the business model to its very core. Disney is about to start laying off and this portends a hurricane for espn.

I would hope that they flush the social justice b/s and televise games and news…….I am tired of seeing reruns of pop warner football on the sec channel and their plans for the future are not good.

My younger brother and I both played college football and each season I fly home for an OU game with him as host and then I host at an A&M game. I have no problem with changing that out to a skiing weekend in Utah or Colorado or even a full week in Costa Rica……

Auntie Kriest
Auntie Kriest

A week skiing the astonishing deep dry powder of Alta, Snowbird, Solitude….that is heaven. Or perhaps a sojourn to the beach for sailing, snorkeling, seafooding and other tropical delights…

or sitting on your ass watching Negroes who hate YT play jungleball.

Mmmm: decisions, tough decisions…

(Auntie does love, however, the Fighting Texas Aggie Band. The greatest military marching band in the world and truly outstanding entertainment.)

Auntie Kriest
Auntie Kriest

Defund, dismantle, and disappear the collegiate and professional. sportsball nonsense complex. Not one bloody cent of taxpayer treasure to the parasites. Let the owners choke on their contracts to playas and venues. Let BLM, Antifa, Maoists, Trotskyites, anarchists and jihadis pay to watch the stupidity.
Time to shut the shit down.

MrLiberty
MrLiberty

Imagine if colleges went back to actually educating kids. Yeah….crazy.

Robert (QSLV)
Robert (QSLV)

I still have my ticket stub from Ebbet’s Field from 1955. Charlie Neal hit a grounder to short stop and was out on first. Phillies beat the Dodgers. Was the next to last game at the place. Leaving the stadium, my father bought roasted chestnuts from a street vendor for me and my brother, 5 cents a bag.

Baseball players made a couple hundred dollars a week, if that.

Maybe the past is the future of sports?

Anonymous
Anonymous

While never a fanatic, I was a big fan. That has been waning as the whiners are constantly crying about how hard they have it … but now, never again. Never. I have thrown out merch in my house, t-shirts, etc. I hope they go bk, fast. They deserve it.

Call me Jack
Call me Jack

Let ‘er burn. The NBA,NFL,and Major League Baseball have jumped the shark.Done.Finished.Will never watch another game no matter what they do.I’m still pissed at Gillette for their “woke” anti-White guy adds.

suzanna
suzanna

I’m a girl. I only watched one game on my little kitchen TV/cable
at that. Cooking programs were all the rage. The Packers were playing
the tie breaker game. My sons came down stairs and remarked they
were astounded. I loathed Basketball. My man played Hockey and Rugby.
I always wished the Packers would win because people were in a foul mood
and quite crabby if they lost. People at work that is. We haven’t even watched
TV in near a decade, and sparingly so prior. I hate TV, 1/2 pornographic,
and the “commercials” are insultingly rotten. No they have insulted the
White culture to the max. Good riddance for my part.

Treefarmer

Sports has been dying for a long time. The Olympics jumped the shark years ago and I don’t even know when the last games were or where the next ones will be (or what season). One by one I found myself drifting away from any interest in the pro or college games. First basketball, then hockey, then baseball. I have been a die hard Philadelphia Eagles fan for 45 years. The Superbowl year was fun, but with all the rule changes and player BS I found myself going from watching every Eagles game all those years to maybe watching eight games in 2018, three games in 2019, and now I haven’t followed any news about the team or the league in six months. I thought it would be difficult, but I haven’t even noticed the “loss.” I don’t know anything about the Eagles’ schedule and don’t plan on watching any football game this year. More time for hiking, fishing, gardening and hunting!

B.S. in V.C
B.S. in V.C

Who wants to watch black people disrespect the flag and anthem and tell you America is a racist country where they are an oppressed minority, making millions of dollars playing a game

anarchyst
anarchyst

…make that “playing a childrens’ game”….

daniel
daniel

stop giving hebrews your money.

Dirtperson Steve
Dirtperson Steve

I do not watch pro sports ever. I do enjoy college sports, although as college football becomes more and more like the pro version I watch less.

I coach basketball. Watching a college game isn’t as much about the players as it is about learning strategy and adjustment for me. I try to attend at least one big time college game every year and sit close enough to the bench to hear coaches.

Some are genuine teachers, making their players and assistants better at their craft. Others are just raging assholes spewing volcanic tirades at players, coaches, and officials.

I like coaching youth sports to use it for character development, something sorely lacking in our present society. It is an opportunity to learn teamwork, leadership, competition, goal seeking, winning, and losing in an environment that will have little consequence going forward.

I will use my son for an example. He was a 3 sport athlete in High School. In baseball his freshman/sophomore years he received accolades from his coaches and lead his JV team in every statistical category. His Jr year there was a coaching change and the new coach was an A-hole.

He would berate the players and single out the leaders for abuse. The kids didn’t like playing for him but still liked to play for each other. It killed him to deliver college inquiries to my son and the other players after telling them how terrible they were.

When he was complaining to me about coach I said, “At some point in your career you will work for an asshole. That boss will only be successful because of his staff but his ego will think it is his greatness. You will be stuck there until one of you moves on. Playing for Coach is preparing you for that day and you will already know how to handle that adversity”

That is why I don’t think all sportsball is bad.

Anonymous
Anonymous

+10 for that comment, Steve.
Reflects much of what I learned playing competitive team sports as a kid.

ILuvCO2
ILuvCO2

Go Noles. Let the hate begin. Sorry, sports can change lives:

Anonymous
Anonymous

Sure can, look at the woke mobs and the sportsballers supporting them.

Fatman from Oz
Fatman from Oz

From an Australian perspective. (I don’t know diddly squat about US wagering laws, although I suspect they wouldn’t be to far different.)

While I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment on display in the comments section, I have to say that sportsball administrators couldn’t give a rat’s arse about people tuning in or out whilst they have betting agencies lining up to give them funds to allow them access, to the games and in game advertising.

Realist
Realist

The obsession with sports is a big part of the reason…American are so ignorant

Billyg
Billyg

Worked my way though college bartending at a sports bar off these “fans”. They swear they where part of the team. Lots of, we need to this and we need to do that… it was hilariously sad. The best was Sunday’s. The same people would show up waiting for the doors to open and would stay all day watching their teams consuming copious amount of beer and chicken wings. Fun while it lasted, Shaq and Kobe paid for most of my college degree.

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