Bloomberg reporter Max Chafkin talks about the future of ESPN as the network behemoth sees lower profits. This past week the sports media hub let approximately 100 employees go, including big names.

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

There’s some news about sports news we want to talk more about. For years, ESPN has been the big name in sports broadcasting showing live events, reporting news, hosting talk shows about sports, airing documentaries about sports. But the network has also been making news itself for losing millions of subscribers in recent years and in the wake of that, losing hundreds of staff.

Last week, there was another layoff – some 100 employees were let go, including well-known names who covered the NFL and college hoops and so on. We were wondering why this is happening and why it matters, so we called Max Chafin. He’s a writer for Bloomberg Businessweek. He’s been writing about all this. We reached him in Vancouver where he’s attending the TED conference. Max, thanks so much for taking time out of the conference to talk with us.

MAX CHAFKIN: Thanks for having me.

MARTIN: So last week’s layoffs are just the latest. There was a massive layoff in 2015 like some 300 staffers were let go. Why is this round of layoffs getting so much attention? And why is all this happening?

CHAFKIN: So the reason this is getting attention is because these are in some cases well-known names. These are people who were on-air talent – combination of people who are on Sports Center which is ESPN’s kind of signature sports highlights show – it’s actually the first show that ever aired on ESPN – and you have some sort of beat reporter.

So these are people that fans know about, and the other reason that this is getting attention is because it’s part of this long-running story that we’ve been seeing playing out over the last few years where ESPN which for a time was probably the most powerful entity in all of sports and maybe arguably the most powerful entity in all of media has now been suddenly laid low by what’s known in the industry as cord-cutting which is to say people who are deciding not to subscribe to cable anymore which cuts directly to their bottom line.

MARTIN: ESPN obviously is kind of pushing back against this idea that the network has been kind of knocked off its lofty perch, for example, you know, Scott Van Pelt, one of their big stars has been very vocal about this. He says that there really is no near competitor. They still are making billions of dollars, and they have like hundreds of thousands of subscribers and still get more per subscriber than any other entity. So what’s the big deal?

CHAFKIN: That’s all true. I mean, ESPN is one of those businesses that is like so good it should be, you know, illegal. They don’t just get more money per subscriber than anybody else, they get, I think, more than double anybody else. So the thing that is a little bit troubling is the trend. And ESPN has been dealing with these subscriber losses in recent months that are historically enormous – losing more than half a million subscribers in a single month.

And the other thing that’s happening to them is that their costs have gone up a lot in recent years, so a single Monday night football game – just the rights to show Monday night football on a single night costs more than, like, an entire season of “Game Of Thrones.” So they’re in this kind of box where on one hand, their costs are going up and their revenues are not going up as much as they’re accustomed to. And so that’s putting them in this position where they have to start cutting.

MARTIN: So, Max, before we let you go, there are some who might be listening to our conversation and say why do I care about that? And what would you say?

CHAFKIN: That’s kind of a good point. But I do think that the thought of ESPN being diminished or sports in our culture being diminished would be unfortunate. I mean, it’s a big part of how a lot of us go through our lives and understand things about the world and things about ourselves and go through these wild, emotional swings. And if that were to all go away, I mean, that would be really sad.

And the other thing is probably worth saying is that ESPN does do some amazing journalism. The O.J. documentary “O.J.: Made In America” won an Academy Award and was obviously about this running back who’d ran a lot of yards, but it also kind of gave you this story of race in Los Angeles. That was new to a lot of people and was important. So I think if they were to go away would be very unfortunate.

MARTIN: That was Bloomberg reporter Max Chafkin He was kind enough to speak to us from Vancouver where he’s attending the TED conference. Max Chafkin, thanks so much for speaking with us.

CHAFKIN: Thanks for having me.

Copyright © 2017 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

ESPN recently let go of about 100 employees. The company faces declining subscriptions as people switch to view sports online. Also a high school pitcher is facing big expectations, maybe too big.

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

Finally, it’s time for sports.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

SIMON: And I guess a hundred is kind of a theme for the news portions of today’s program and that same number shook the sports world as ESPN let go of about a hundred employees this week, including producers and on-air personalities as more people watch sports online while ESPN still pays enormous amounts of money for broadcast rights. But has the network also gotten over its skis on other matters? NPR’s Tom Goldman joins us. Morning, Tom.

TOM GOLDMAN, BYLINE: Hi, Scott, welcome back.

SIMON: Thank you. Good to be back. Although, I had fun, too. Not to drag politics into sports, but there are some people who believe ESPN has done just that and may have lost viewers because of it.

GOLDMAN: Yeah, there are. They say ESPN leans left, and that’s driven away Conservative sports fans. Conservative commentators and bloggers cite lots of coverage of Caitlyn Jenner and transgender issues, lots of coverage of Colin Kaepernick and his anthem protests. Although, I watched a lot of that and not all was supportive of Kaepernick.

ESPN also has made visible moves to promote diversity, pulling – putting more women and people of color in prominent on-air positions. ESPN’s public editor named Jim Brady acknowledged in a tweet this week that politics is a small cause for ESPN’s problems. But he also wrote in a column, a few weeks ago, the network isn’t going to stick to sports, and it’ll continue covering the fusion of sports and culture and politics.

SIMON: I’ve been in the sports world for a couple of weeks, as you know, on book tours, in and out of sports studios. And I know the feeling there seems to be this is something much bigger for ESPN because it has all these long-term top-dollar broadcast rights while more and more people are just cutting the cord and streaming sports online.

GOLDMAN: Yeah. I think there’s general agreement those are the main causes according to Nielsen data. ESPN has lost more than 10 million subscribers in the past five years. And at the same time, as you mentioned, ESPN is paying billions in rights fees to broadcast NFL, NBA, Major League Baseball, college sports.

You know, it’s not certain whether the layoffs can help recoup losses or if they’re more of a signal to shareholders that ESPN is taking the losses seriously and trying to streamline. Either way, Scott, the network has lost some talented journalists. And you hope they find outlets to continue their great work.

SIMON: Have to ask about the cover of Sports Illustrated.

GOLDMAN: Were you on?

SIMON: You know, no. Maybe regionally, maybe in the Midwest, maybe even in Chicago…

GOLDMAN: (Laughter).

SIMON: …With my word processor as they say. But in any event, it’s a 17-year-old pitcher out of Notre Dame High School in Sherman Oaks, Calif. His name is Hunter Greene. And the cover says, is he baseball’s LeBron or the new Babe?

Now, look, I have seen video of Hunter Greene. I am excited about him. But is it wise to hang this line around the neck of a gifted young man?

GOLDMAN: Little bit of pressure? Of course, LeBron James hit the cover of SI years ago with the words, the chosen one, and that worked out pretty well. You know, we are always so ready to christen the youngest as the next greatest of all time, but we need to remember greatness, winning, usually takes time.

It’s a small sample size but I think relevant. In the NBA playoffs, four of the first five teams to win opening playoff series had older starting lineups based on the average age of the starting five. So age matters.

SIMON: Yeah. I mean, LeBron is a good example, by the way, now that he’s in his 30s. Before we go, any quick nice stories that you noticed in the NFL draft?

GOLDMAN: We are so NFL obsessed, Scott. Seems like every player drafted is a noteworthy story in his new city. I will pluck out one, though – quarterback Deshaun Watson drafted by Houston this week. When he was 11, he and his mom and siblings moved from public housing into a Habitat for Humanity house. It was presented to them by NFL player Warrick Dunn, one of the most charitably-minded athletes ever. Watson was drafted 12th by the Houston – same draft position Warrick Dunn went in 1997.

SIMON: NPR’s Tom Goldman, thanks so much.

GOLDMAN: You’re welcome.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

SIMON: You’re listening to WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News.

Copyright © 2017 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

University of Michigan football coach Jim Harbaugh went to the Vatican this week. He gave the pope a Michigan football helmet, and some athletic shoes.

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

Good morning. I’m Rachel Martin. It is just good manners to bring a gift to someone you’re visiting. So when the coach of the University of Michigan’s football team, Jim Harbaugh, went to the Vatican this week, he bestowed a few presents upon the pontiff – a Michigan football helmet and some athletic shoes. The famously bombastic coach showed his softer side when he tweeted, quote, “there is no word to describe the inner beauty that shines through the eyes of our Holy Father and his words. Pray for me.” It’s MORNING EDITION.

Copyright © 2017 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

ESPN has lost 10 million subscribers since 2011. Today, to cut costs, the sports network is expected to lay off 100 employees. NPR’s Audie Cornish talks to John Ourand of the Sports Business Journal.

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

It’s a brutal day at ESPN. The sports television giant has been handing out pink slips to dozens of on-air personalities. As many as a hundred layoffs are expected. And this comes two years after the company laid off 350 off-air employees. ESPN has traditionally been a profit-generating machine for its parent company Disney but the network has lost millions of subscribers the past few years, as cable’s cord-cutting trend has cut directly into the company’s bottom line.

To learn more about this, we turn to John Ourand of the Sports Business Journal. Welcome to the program.

JOHN OURAND: Thank you, Audie.

CORNISH: So tell us a little bit more about the financial bind that led to today’s layoffs.

OURAND: Well, it’s not only the subscriber loss which is huge and it’s really affecting all cable channels. ESPN used to be in close to a hundred million houses and now it’s in less than 87 million homes according to Nielsen. And ESPN gets about $7 per subscriber per month. And so that loss ends up being a lot of money. But combined with that – losses, ESPN has been paying more and more and more for sports rights.

They just started a multibillion dollar NBA agreement in the fall and they have to now pay that. And so the finances that used to work when they were in a hundred million homes, they don’t work as well anymore.

CORNISH: Meanwhile, more than a quarter of U.S. households apparently don’t subscribe to cable or satellite services. It’s a percentage that has been on the rise in recent years. Has ESPN prepared itself for this world where there are fewer people subscribing to cable packages?

OURAND: I think that’s what they’re trying to do today. So they’re trying to – what they call rightsizing, which is an awful corporate word for letting go of good executives and good talent. And they’re just trying to be leaner and move forward in the digital future.

CORNISH: So what does that look like for consumers?

OURAND: Later this year, ESPN is going to launch an over-the-top service. That means that you don’t need to have – be a cable subscriber to get it. And you’ll be able to stream games to your computer. It’s not going to be the best games. Those are still going to be on the cable ESPN because they still want to support the cable industry because that’s what pays the bills for them.

CORNISH: So is this a little bit like what HBO has done, offering a parallel streaming app?

OURAND: Exactly. And it’s what all the networks are now looking into doing ’cause they are realizing the need to go directly to the consumer ’cause consumers, especially younger consumers, are not consuming cable.

CORNISH: Now, the two groups hardest hit by the cuts so far are the reporters. For instance, Ed Werder, who covered the NFL for 17 years for ESPN, frankly, just about anyone who’s connected to the NHL. But so far, it seems like the talking-head-types are safe. What does this tell you about where they’re taking the programming?

OURAND: So ESPN is viewing their programming in two different ways. One is the live games. And then the second thing that they’re doing is SportsCenter is a highlight show that has been a staple of ESPN since ESPN launched. But the problem is people see their highlights in real time almost on their smartphones. So the need for a highlight show like SportsCenter doesn’t work as well.

So what they’re trying to do now is that they’re producing these SportsCenters around specific personalities. They have Scott Van Pelt around midnight. They have Jemele Hill at 6 o’clock. And so they’re really counting on the fact that these personalities are going to be able to drive ratings in a way that traditional highlight shows don’t do anymore.

CORNISH: The situation sounds bad because they just made so much money but they still make a lot of money. I mean, you talked about cable carriers paying upwards of $7 for every customer who gets ESPN in a bundle.

OURAND: Yeah. Don’t cry for ESPN, Audie, absolutely not. They are still profitable. And they still bring in a lot of money. The problem is they just don’t bring as much money as they did before and that’s something that’s concerning.

CORNISH: John Ourand. He writes for the Sports Business Journal. Thank you so much for speaking with us.

OURAND: Thank you, Audie.

(SOUNDBITE OF THE BUDOS BAND’S “T.I.B.W.F.”)

Copyright © 2017 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.

NPR’s Mary Louise Kelly speaks with Howard Bryant of ESPN.com and ESPN the Magazine about tennis and Serena Williams’ pregnancy.

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

And it’s time for sports.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

KELLY: Twenty weeks – that was the caption of a photo Serena Williams shared on Snapchat on Wednesday. Her spokeswoman confirmed the news that night. She’s pregnant. I’m joined now by Howard Bryant of ESPN and ESPN The Magazine. Hi there, Howard.

HOWARD BRYANT: Good morning, how are you?

KELLY: I am well, thank you. I’m sitting here doing some back of the envelope math. Serena – she won the Australian Open back in January, less than 20 weeks ago, which means when she won it – when she dominated it, by the way – she didn’t drop a set – she was two months pregnant.

BRYANT: She was, which was – technically, it was a doubles tournament.

(LAUGHTER)

KELLY: On one side of the net at least.

BRYANT: On one side of the net, yes. Who knew that that final between Venus and Serena was actually a family affair – mother, child and aunt.

KELLY: More than we knew. Yeah, I mean…

BRYANT: She’s incredible. It’s absolutely an incredible story for her. And once again, I think when we were on this program, Scott and I talked about this before the Australian Open began, and we took a lot – well, I took a lot of criticism for this because people were asking about what Serena’s prospects for the year were going to be. And I thought that we were going to see a major change. And we were criticized, at least the show was criticized, because she had gotten engaged. And we don’t do that for men.

We don’t say that because a man is being – is about to get married that, suddenly, their entire life is going to change. But if you watch Serena over the past couple of seasons, especially last year, she’d only played eight tournaments. She played the majors. She played the Olympics, and she played a couple of smaller tournaments. And then this year, she gets engaged, and now it turns out that she was pregnant. She has been signaling for a while that there’s a new chapter for her, that this is – that tennis is not forever for her. And she’s made it very clear in a lot of sort of vague ways. But if you’re paying attention to her, you can sort of understand where she’s coming from.

KELLY: OK. But I got to – I’m got a jump on you there because she is 35. As you said, you wouldn’t say this about a man. She’s going to have take maternity leave, but has she said she’s not coming back?

BRYANT: Well, she said she is planning on coming back. However, the difference is that Roger Federer has four children. He never took any time off. Of course, you have to take time off if you want to start a family, and that is the difference. But the one thing that’s been really interesting about Serena is that she hasn’t really hidden the fact that there’s life after tennis for her, and there’s life during tennis for her.

I mean, one of the interesting things for a female tennis player is – Victoria Azarenka is another example who actually did take time off. She had a baby boy, and she’s supposed to come back this year. At 35…

KELLY: Which is what Serena is, yeah.

BRYANT: Which is what Serena’s going to be 36 after having done everything that you could possibly do. Let’s have a little perspective about her, too. She’s been playing tennis since she was four years old. She turned pro in 1995. She’s been doing this her entire life. And my attitude has been that if, indeed, Serena comes back, then it would be an amazing story.

She could be like Kim Clijsters who had a baby at 23, 24 and came back and won two majors. She came back and won the U.S. Open back to back. But if she doesn’t, look at what Serena Williams has done for tennis and for the American story. She has given everybody everything they could ask for and more.

KELLY: We’ve just got a few seconds left. But in those few seconds, Howard, what’s this going to mean for the women’s tour? I mean, Serena has been the ticket – the people – the person people come to see.

BRYANT: Yeah, she’s the main draw, and that’s the big thing. Obviously, Maria Sharapova coming back from suspension – I think the WTA could use that. But let’s face it, both American tennis and the WTA has been dreading the day that Venus and Serena are no longer there because they are what makes the game go. But it’s a great sport.

KELLY: Yeah, we’ll see if there’s baby pics (ph) at the (unintelligible) in a few years. Howard Bryant…

BRYANT: Wouldn’t that be something?

KELLY: Yeah, it would be. Howard Bryant of ESPN, thank you.

BRYANT: Thank you.

Copyright © 2017 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.