Old fat retired sports men need to be paid less to talk rubbish in between hours of adverts.

An awful tv channel, it is time to go.

... I'll just continue without cable. Sports -- and the people who talk about them -- are not important to me.

I hope they bleed more viewers.

I would say they didn't lose 3.2 million "viewers", they lost 3.2 million subscribers. People "forced" to have it because of Disney's carriage bundles. I have to pay for it with my cable subscription, but I don't watch it. If I drop cable, ESPN doesn't lose a viewer, but they'd say they did.

ESPN does have a place in the cable lineup. There are enough sports fans to make it viable. The problem is, the PRICE of the sports tier is way out of whack with the value it provides. Sure, I like to watch football games on sunday, but I'm not willing to shell out almost $400.00 a year to do it. It does not have enough value for me to pay for it. I don't want to pay that much money for something that does not have that much value for me, so I refuse to pay for sports. The problem occurs when ESPN is bundled with channels I DO want.
The solution is very simple. Complete A-la-carte channel pricing. I would be willing to pay ABC/NBC/CBS/FOX/CW $2.00 a month each (considering the number of commercials they have, I should actually be asking them to pay me.) I will pay for AMC/History/Sci-Fi and maybe a few others for a few dollars a month. I don't want to spend more that $25.00 a month TOTAL for the 7-8 channels I do watch.

Here's where their model all breaks down. I'm moving to Chattanooga TN next month, and I've signed up for 1gb/1gb for $69.99 a month.
I didn't subscribe to a TV packages (as I get get an OTA HD Antenna which gets me all the major networks).
Guess what I WILL do with 1gb/sec. I will get the TV Shows from the networks I can't get OTA via torrents. Everyone loses. I am more than willing to pay for those channels. I am NOT willing to be forced to buy a bundle of 100 channels for $100.00 a month to get the 8 or so channels I do watch. 5 of them I can get OTA, 3 of them I will download.
I am a corporation. I have the right, nay, the OBLIGATION to lie, steal, cheat and do whatever I can to maximize my returns for my shareholders (me). If that involves bending the law, so be it. As long as the CORPORATION is the one downloading, the worst that can happen is it gets a fine. Oh well, that's the cost of doing business. As a corporation, I can't go to jail, I can only be fined. Thanks Citizens United. I'm just playing with the same playbook megacorps use.

Good Riddance ESPN. We don't want you, we don't need you, and you need to go.

But yet I am forced to pay for it.

I'd rather pay for what I want to watch, VS paying for everything.

... Since I wouldn't be paying for it! I don't mind subsidizing education and paying my fair share for snow plowing and garbage collection, but I draw the line at sports.

(Well, I try to draw the line at sports, but elected officials around here still seem to think that having taxpayers pay for stadiums for rich guys is reasonable. But that's another topic.)

I am sure they have done the math and found the current model of having non-sports-consumers subsidize the service to be most profitable, but when 3.2 becomes 6.4 and so on, and so on, eventually they will offer some more equitable options.

Greedy Morons.

How can it be called LOST when most of those so-called viewers never
watched ESPN. I been paying for it in my directv package for years and
I never watch it. If the people that watched it were the only people
paying for it, they would either never be able to pay for it, or the
viewers would pay a ton more to keep it.

You know how Disney etc want their packages bundled? If we can't get a single channels why not sell their bundles as seperate packages. This way they'll still get their channels all bundled but the customers can still choose if they think those channels are worth getting.

Honestly, if costumers had the option of opting out of channels for a refund over cutting the cord entirely I assume a few people who are still reluctant would remove channels they don't want and get refunded.

The problem is that when you buy a package you can't remove specific channels and be refunded for them. The broadcaster is still making money on those channels even if someone doesn't watch them.

I never watch ESPN's why should I pay for stuff I don't watch.

I don't want it and I don't want to pay for it, dam Disney.

I couldn't even tell you what channel ESPN is for me on Directv. I have no interest in sports. ESPN better not raise rates to make up for this. I'd be all for DTV dropping ESPN if that was the case. Though I don't that'll happen...

ESPN might have to significantly cut back costs, but based on this 35.7% of users do want ESPN:
»Most Users Want A La Carte TV, Don't Care About ESPN

Plenty of channels will continue to exist just fine, they'll just have to adjust their models. People are tired of subsidizing channels they don't watch, rightfully so.