ESPN Esports Death After $1.5 Million Budget

42 Comments

1. Is the other guy that ugly that they won’t put his mug on video? ?

2. They should've bought this channel and given entire control to Jake.

3. I can’t stop laughing at that mic, sorry. ?

4. Emily and Arda were great, hope they find success elsewhere

5. Not too interested in hearing people besides Jake!!
   Esports talk please give jake a raise and make less content with others

6. Will Esports talk ever talk about their finances? I'm so curious about yours

7. Jake I’m a trucker / part time gamer / dad of 3 kids , thank you very much for always keeping us updated with all the esports topics you are greatly underrated brotha!

8. I really hope you guys can become the barstool sports of esports

9. 1.5 million budget and that fat fook didn't have a proper mic till the end LOL

10. I mean I don't think there's many people that watch ESPN that would hop onto the esport wagon anyway. There's no overlap of audiences there at all. It's better to just watch esports online anyway

11. Well video games don't belong on ESPN so I'm happy with it

12. This show would be better than first take

13. Who funds Esports talk

14. A lot of people watch streamers, never met anyone that watches competitive. Just sayin

15. With all due respect, I can tell none of the money went to your channel due to the complete lack of camera changes.

    Jake, I like you man but this was your sloppiest video and it just happened to take place on one of the most important videos your channel has ever put out.

    Im going to stay subscribed because I believe in something bigger but please, stop scaring me with such simple mistakes.

    Keep it professional

16. They cld of just hired yall for like $100k a year…

17. From a person that works in the film and studio industry I can guarantee you that the budget was very poorly spent on stages and talent that weren't needed!

18. ESPN is a very traditional media outlet that has never focused as much on creativity and innovation as it has on simply trying to be the biggest and most relevant provider of sports content out there. I imagine what happened is that someone within the company probably brought up the idea of covering eSports to the attention of the executives. Execs probably saw it as a gamble, where the payoff could be incredible but, to them, it would most likely be a failure. A $1.5 million investment is substantial for a small and focused company that tracks their spending very closely. For ESPN, it's pennies, they barely even have an incentive to pay attention to where the money was going. I imagine they make payments for millions of dollars fairly regularly, so this type of investment is just another drop in the bucket. With this mindset from the beginning, ESPN eSports was doomed to fail. The execs probably gave the division the money, told them, "make us a profit" and then left them to figure it out. I assume this is what happened because from the very beginning it seemed seemed their content was all over the place and there was no clear marketing direction. ESPN eSports didn't even have a fraction of the presence that The Score eSports has, and I think a lot of that has to do more with just poor market reach rather than bad content. A lot of the ESPN stuff was pretty solid but it never felt like they established any concrete segments or series that would cement themselves in the scene. All of this could have been turned around with solid guidance and additional funding but ESPN probably just pulled the plug as soon as they saw any loss on their investment. But they never really tried. A company of of that size could have easily allocated many more resources to the eSports division, but it's pretty obvious that they were never confident in eSports to begin with given the way things played out. I feel for the employees because I could see they were passionate and were great journalists/interviewers, and were probably just not provided with the proper budgeting and strategic guidance that a huge company could have easily afforded. Regardless, eSports is still in a Grey area for big companies so I don't fully blame them for being cautious, but they may as well have just never invested the 1.5 in the first place if they weren't going to make a good effort

19. I agree with the second opinion. That's a pretty small budget in terms of ESPN. Not surprised they failed.

20. Imagine this: ESPN Esports talk

21. I mean, 11 employes making 50k-100k a year on average takes most of that budget

22. Last year, announced a five-year, $1.5 billion pact to stream fights on ESPN+ and show bouts on its cable channels BILLION NOT MILLION
    20% FROM THAT IS 300M thats why Dana never stopped UFC dont want to loose that

23. 1.5 M for espn is fuckin tea money

24. Jakeypoo brings us ALL the esporting for like 3.50$ annually. He's just that l33t.

25. Mark Cuban was right as always!

26. ESPN got political and lost 30% of viewership. That's the real reason they are laying people off…

27. I worked in marketing for Frontier Comm. for 4 1/2 years and then DirecTV for 3 and left in 2018., ESPN and Discovery are two of the worst offenders in that industry for holding those companies hostage by demanding more and more money. They have literally priced carriers and themselves right out of the market. As things like IPTV and cord cutters grow and grow, and many talented people join those teams making UI's that get easier and easier to use, ESPN still can't show all programming through a standalone app and they get destroyed by cord cutters.

    Bottom line, fuck ESPN.

28. ESPN is dying a slow death. They pay all employees peanuts and actual content gets worse and worse every year.

29. Old news though no?

30. “That’s 4 tractors” ??? aye let him know, 1.5M is nothing for ESPN

31. 1.5m is such a low budget and there's no way they spend that little for MMA

32. Still better than C9 "Colossal" lol

33. BYEEEEE CYA, THANK GOD THIS CHANNEL IS GOING, its so bad, BYEEEEEEEEE THANK FUCK,

34. THE WORST CHANNEL FOR NEWS EVER, DISGUSTING

35. They could take millions out of the almost 1 and 2 billion dollar budgets of the boring ass NBA and MLB and allocate at least 5 million to eSports. They just didn't care. lol

36. Talk about guilty gear or end this channel

37. I mean they missed their target audience by a mile…

38. 1.5M is a lot of money, but not for ESPN

39. my man changed the game up and went to lounge on the couch, keepin the audience on its toes as jake does

40. Put Pete on cam!

41. Pfffffff get back to school jake. In a business like esports and that market, 1.5mil is pocket dust. Come on, get real! Espn i worth countless amounts of millions $$

42. I legit think ESPN doesn’t understand what E sports is like to those that don’t follow it hardcore. They have a habit of pushing off sports that they think people don’t like too much. Look what they do for Hockey. Not much & that is a big sport.

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