After Charles Barkley Triggering Remarks Haunted Stephen A. Smith’s Employer, More Troubles Drown ESPN

ESPN used to be at the top of sports media and entertainment for years. ESPN was acquired by Disney in 1996 as part of the ABC acquisition. Throughout the years, ESPN has stayed on top of sports entertainment as the sole producer for all your sports needs, going international with their coverage and availability.

But now that more and more people are moving away from the ancient ways, ESPN seems to find itself in a rather difficult situation.

How long before ESPN’s falls from the top

According to a recent video by the entrepreneur and investor, Joe Pompliano, ESPN is undoubtedly in trouble. ESPN’s model is the cable subscription. The consumer pays $9 a month for the subscription. They are in 70 million households, which gives them an annual revenue of $8 billion. But this is not something to be happy about because they have been losing subscribers rapidly because of cable cutting. Back in 2010, they used to have 100 million subscribers!

If they stay on track, he says they will fall below 50 million subscribers within the next decade.

Sports personalities like Stephen A. Smith are trying to keep the ship afloat, but things are not smooth at the top. Recently, Disney decided to let go of 700 employees as part of cost-cutting. This led to ESPN removing 20 on-air reporters. This also led to two fan favorites and important analysts getting the short end of the stick as well.

16-year veteran NBA analyst and coach Jett Van Gundy was one of the most surprising names on the list of people released. Former NBA player Jalen Rose was also removed during this.

This news from ESPN has led to fans bringing up this hilarious video from Charles Barkley talking about ESPN from years ago.

Charles Barkley will never work for ESPN

Charles Barkley shared in an old segment of Inside the NBA that “they would work me like a dog and not pay me” when asked if he would work for ESPN. Recently, Disney decided to lay off 700 employees, which led to ESPN cutting 20 on-air reporters.

The crew couldn’t stop laughing at this.

Stephen A. Smith is the face of ESPN’s first take. ESPN in recent years seems to have moved to a click-rate-based analysis of the sport. Among the people that ESPN puts on the screen, there are very few that give their unbiased opinion on basketball, like JJ Reddick.

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According to Joe Pompliano, ESPN believes they can convert people to streaming through ESPN+; they currently have 25 million subscriptions to ESPN+. But it is because it is a packaged deal with Disney+ and Hulu. ESPN+ amounts to 0.6% of all streaming hours. It is assumed that Disney might sell ESPN in the future if this keeps going on.

Who do you think will be right-suited if something of that sort happens? Comment below if you think Apple or Amazon might take a chance on it.

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