Unfortunately, they managed to infuse the "culture of debate" into their programming in the last 5-10 years which brought in a certain kind of viewer and alienated many of their loyal base. It was a short term gain which has hurt them a lot because they can't afford to not continually grow due to the NFL and NCAA deals that they signed. They have to grow to convince advertisers that they have the most relevant audience in the business.

Now, how people consume sports has changed significantly with the advent and maturation of social media. People catch snippets and share those like crazy. ESPN naturally tries to tailor their programming to meet this new paradigm but it's just sort of unfocused and abrasive at times.

Which brings me to their talking heads. I love intelligent sports debate. Dan Lebatard does it well on his show, IMO. But they've had to let go of their best talent because they have a mandate from Disney to cut costs. So you often go from people that know their sports and can debate to people who just don't quite have that "it factor" but are cheap and can follow a certain in your face, hot take formula.

Then, there's the fact that ESPN as an individual channel is so overpriced. There's just a bad mix of stuff going on at the worldwide leader. It's a shame because I grew up on the audition Stuart Scott, Rich Risen and SVP era and I wish it was more like that still.