On the heels of ESPN laying off some 100 writers and on-air radio and TV talent, Sports Illustrated announced on Friday that they are laying off five of their staffers, including Seth Davis who has been writing for the iconic sports magazine since 1995.
Earlier in the week, SI parent company Time Inc. saw their stock plummet to $13 a share from $15 after the company rejected an offer to be purchased at $18 a share.
Davis stated that he plans on continuing with his writing career and will depart from SI with no hard feelings: “I have not an ounce of regret or bitterness. This is the way the industry is headed. SI is a great place with great people.”
Breitbart News reported in April that ESPN’s layoffs may be the “leading edge” of the coming “sports bubble.” The SI layoffs demonstrate that prediction may be right on the money. TV Answer Man Phillip Swan’s opinion that because channels began raising their fees five years ago to “unprecedented levels” to pay for enormous contracts to broadcast games proved to be a seminal moment in ESPN’s decline.
Swan writes, “Customers started to howl over the annual bill hikes, and that led to talk that they would drop their pay TV service, a practice known as cord-cutting.” Moreover, Swan explains, “The woes of the sports channels continued with several pay TV operators deciding to eliminate ESPN from low-cost programming packages in an effort to attract young people. The decision has cost ESPN several million viewers over the last year or so, leaving the sports network with shrinking profits and declining advertising revenue, which led to yesterday’s firings.”
Clay Travis and others argue that it’s not just the untenable contracts to broadcast sporting events that are killing ESPN, other sports networks, and magazines. It’s their penchant for liberal political views and their insistence on political correctness.
“I’m not saying that ESPN should just stick to sports, but I am saying that if you decide to allow political opinions to flourish from your network’s stars that you shouldn’t neuter all conservative opinion and allow liberal political opinion to advance unchecked. That’s not a marketplace of ideas, that’s a totalitarian government. Those with liberal opinions are rewarded and allowed to speak freely, those with conservative opinions are told to keep their mouths shut.
Conservative viewers aren’t stupid, they see exactly what’s happening.
Even crazier, SPORTS VIEWERS ARE, ON AVERAGE, CONSERVATIVE!,” writes Travis in an article on Outkick the Coverage back in February.
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