ESPN has been facing a crisis of sorts over the past year-plus as they have seen three different waves of layoffs sweep through Bristol and beyond. With the ever-declining number of subscribers, the sports media giant is faced with new challenges (that all major networks are facing) with regards to cable-cutting and more and more people consuming their news and even live sports online.
While the layoffs have been tough to watch and extremely unfortunate, the narrative around ESPN’s demise has been, for the most part, overblown. ESPN still brings in an incredible amount of revenue, it’s just not as much as it once was and they will continue having to pivot in figuring out how to better monetize digital to slow the bleeding some.
ESPN wants to change that narrative, but they face an uphill battle in doing so, simply because there is significant push back against them from conservative outlets, which are insistent that ESPN’s struggles are the result of their personalities bringing up politics (with a lean to the left) and race in discussion of sports. Those in Bristol have been trying to figure out how to challenge that narrative and show people that, despite losing subscribers, the sky isn’t falling for ESPN.
This week, ESPN flew in all of their editorial and video staff for a meeting in Bristol to go over a number of things, including their new social media policy (which is partially an effort to rein in some of their perceived issues with getting political). However, as Sports Illustrated‘s Richard Deitsch relayed via an ESPN staffer at the meeting, much of the focus from John Skipper and upper management was on positives and it served as a “pep rally” about the future of the company.
“Skipper’s message was we need to control the sky-is-falling narrative better since that’s just not the case,” said one staffer in attendance. “I would say the first hour was rally the troops, a big-time pep rally: here’s our great data, look at our great numbers. The next time someone is telling you we are losing steam, it just isn’t the case.”
It’s a smart move from Skipper and ESPN, as morale at the company has certainly and understandably taken a hit following so many layoffs. Whether they can shift the narrative about the company outside the walls of Bristol remains to be seen, but the recent acquisition of Fox Sports’ regional networks could provide them with some strong momentum going into 2018 and provide them with more of a regional foothold in markets they had been forced to pull out of in cutbacks on ESPN’s national website and coverage.
As for the social media policy portion of the presentation to employees, it was emphasized that they were not to venture into the political realm, although if a politician waded into the sports world they would discuss it, and that there were ramifications for violating the policy.
Merida pointed out to the group that there was a clause in the social media policy where management reserved the right to take action if staffers violated it. “He was very measured and I thought appealed to the people with reason in the room,” said one ESPN staffer. Merida told the audience that he had spoken to ESPN on-air staffers who are active on Twitter—including Pablo Torre, Sarah Spain and Van Pelt—to get feedback on their social media experience.
It will be interesting to see how the company toes the line on this policy the next time the political and sports worlds collide and those lines are blurred between speaking out on a sports issue and speaking on a political one. In any case, ESPN wants you and its employees to know it’s not dying. Scaling back and refocusing efforts in new places, absolutely, but the Worldwide Leader isn’t shuttering its doors any time soon.
