The idea from Mark’s boss, George Bodenheimer – president of ESPN and ABC sports, is that they ‘are not going to sit on their laurels’ and that the company is ‘on the move’, but at what cost? As described in the article, the ‘symbiotic relationship’ that exists between ESPN and most of professional sports is what made their leadership position possible and what made it possible to charge high fees and be as profitable as they are. What will happen if the cable network continues to produce original programming that is offensive to strategic partners? The most likely result is that the partners will find other broadcast avenues for their games.
If ESPN wished to continue providing original programming, they should not do this under the ESPN brand name due to the fact that the impression people get when they think of the brand. A more likely successful strategy would be to release these programs under a new brand name and then have them broadcast on other cable networks. This way they could realize new audiences, but yet not be inflammatory to the relationships which have put them in such an advantageous position. This would be similar to the move that Honda made when they decided to enter the high end market and did it with a new brand name – Acura. If they had done this with the Honda brand name the result would most likely been a flop.
Another reason given for this dramatic shift in broadcasting philosophy is stated very clearly by Mark Shapiro saying: “If we don’t grow, we’ll die”. The inferred message from Mark’s statement is that with growth there will be additional profits and this is not always necessarily true. Growth does not always result in profits. Also, if there is no focus on whether a new venture is profitable or no examination of how the new avenues affect current revenue streams then it is very likely that growth opportunities overall will not provide the expected results. Once again, expectations and the eventual reality will most likely be much different.
Mentioned at the conclusion of the article is positive results for PLAYMAKERS. The Nielsen ratings, as indicated, are a 5 fold improvement. But even though such dramatic results occurred, it is indicated that Mark Shapiro won’t yet commit to signing the show for another season. Perhaps he sees the level of trouble the show is causing with strategic partners or maybe he notices the weakening of the brand that is being caused by original programming being released under the ESPN sports play-by-play brand name. New line extensions, as this one is, have sizable results in the short-term, but in the long term will most likely fizzle out.
Clearly the current brand identity of ESPN is that of a 24-hour sports cable channel showing the big games and giving play-by-play review of past games. But as mentioned by David Stern, NBA commissioner, the moves of ESPN ‘raise issues of what they want their brand to be’. Do they want to move in the direction that HBO did from a movie channel to one with an original series? An even worse example that would make many age 20-40 males cringe: ESPN gradually moving away from 24 hour sports to original programming similar to the major move by MTV away from music videos 24 hours a day into various other programming. One friend recently told me that he hated the show PLAYMAKERS and that this move to original programming felt similar to MTV’s move lessening the showing of music videos. He said that if ESPN’s movement continued in the direction of original programming, that he would cease to watch the channel. The danger clearly in this new strategy of ESPN is that they very much risk alienating not only their strategic partners and but even more importantly their core audience.
