Lesson Learned? Nah.

AS ESPN GOT MORE POLITICAL IN 2016, IT LOST REPUBLICAN VIEWERS Yesterday, it was announced ESPN is laying off upwards of 100 employees – many of whom are prominent on-air talent. Perhaps the hottest take of the day claimed that “sports fans really don’t like anyone who stands up for civil rights.” The challenges facing ESPN are newly discovered; a lot has been written about ESPN’s recent decline in ratings and subscriptions. FOX Sports – the primary TV competitor to “the worldwide leader in sports” – has enjoyed twisting the knife as ESPN faces cutting on-screen talent to make up for budget shortfalls. The FOX blog “Outkick the Coverage” has attributed ESPN’s decline to the rising partisanship coming out of Bristol, labeling the network “MSESPN” in pieces like this one, headlined “ESPN Profit Plummets As Network Turns Left”. “Outkick the Coverage’s” Clay Travis supports his argument with Scarborough data showing most sports fans are conservative politically. With the news of today’s layoffs, Travis argues that the network’s leftward turn is “more a symptom of the collapse than it is a cause of the collapse.” Naturally, the news out of Bristol has led to a variety of “takes” across the Internet. The National Review Online wrote a warning about politicizing sports. Others have scoffed at the idea that partisanship has kept people from watching ESPN, even as ESPN’s public editor concedes that it is among “a set of smaller causes” harming ESPN. Perhaps the hottest take of the day claimed that “sports fans really don’t like anyone who stands up for civil rights.” .... Specifically, in 2015, the ESPN audience on average skewed Republican across all dayparts, ranging from 12% more Republican (Early News, Late Fringe, Overnight) to 21% more Republican than Democratic (Early Morning). In 2016, every daypart on ESPN became less conservative, with Daytime being only 2% more Republican than Democratic, while Late Fringe and Overnight programming became 10% and 12% more Democratic than Republican – a 22 and 28 point shift, respectively. The same is true across other ESPN properties. ESPN2 skewed Republican across most dayparts in 2015; in 2016 all dayparts skewed Democratic. Every daypart also switched on ESPN News from 2015 to 2016. ESPNU was the only network that retained its mostly Republican audience. ESPN Deportes – the network’s Spanish language channel – became even more Democratic in 2016 than it already was in 2015. Here is a complete look at the 2015-2016 shift in partisanship across ESPN networks: [FULL] What really put leftwing sports politicizing on the map, for me, was when 49er QB Colin Kaepernick refused to stand during the national anthem.  Wanted to kick his, along with the rest of the BLM gang, in the ass. I wasn't alone, as  headlines like this abounded: NFL Boycotts, Kaepernick Backlash Becoming Major Factor As NFL Ratings Drop Yet Again In Week 4  (Note, he's now out of a job.  Nobody wants him) And, when the next week every ESPN show I watched (a lot of them) had the talking heads defending  him (and taking shots at Trump for good measure), I exercised my remote control.