11/05/24
November 25, 2004
Calling all ESPN outsiders: An e-mail -- "I've been using SpoFi for a while now, you guys do some good work. I currently work for ESPN.com, and since you are pretty enmeshed in the sports blogging community, I'd love your feedback on a question I asked recently on my blog."
posted by rcade to navel gazing at 08:19 AM - 13 comments
I posted, but it must go through a filtering process. I'm pretty sure mine won't make it... I told him the more ESPN hides its content, the more I go elsewhere. Free access to information is what the web is all about. Filtering comments - I should have known. They just don't get it.
posted by dusted at 05:37 PM on November 25, 2004
I'm with Dusted. Not only would I not pay for ESPN insider, but the increase in "IN" stuff on the front page means I visit espn.com less and less. I can't see a site offering enough content beyond the norm to make a subscription worthwhile, unless it made virtually everything pay-to-play, in which case I'd wander off elsewhere. For any ESPN obsessives watching IP addresses, you'll have noticed that mine doesn't show up on soccernet.com any more either - their crime? Pop-ups. The day after ESPN took over the soccernet site, windows I didn't ask for started appearing on my PC, (or, more accurately, trying to appear), and I've gone from daily visits then, to about two visits in the last year now.
posted by Mr Bismarck at 02:56 AM on November 26, 2004
As I'm an utterly stingy bastard who objects to both spending money and the creeping subscriptivisation of the intarweb they have less than no fucking chance of getting my business. Also, why would a football fan pay for ESPN when we have the BBC? Which of course we've already paid for with our license fees. I'll be passing the hat around you freeloading foreigners later on.
posted by squealy at 03:21 AM on November 26, 2004
I agree with what Dusted said. Information is free all over the place. I was a little upset when they put Neyer behind the pay-barrier, but it just means I visit ESPN less and less and visit Baseball Primer and Hardball Times more and more.
posted by grum@work at 07:48 AM on November 26, 2004
I think it is reasonable to pay for certain services on the Internet, but not for content that in most cases you can get elsewhere. ESPN -- what are you DOING for us?
posted by smithers at 08:54 AM on November 26, 2004
That said, Kareem, put me in touch with the ESPN Canada guy....I've got some ideas for you.
posted by smithers at 08:56 AM on November 26, 2004
I like Insider when I get it free with a fantasy sports subscription on ESPN, the way the site has been getting my money for years. ESPN used to be lax about limiting Insider access to paying customers -- you could put one story ID number in another URL and read the Insider piece. That appears to have been closed, as of the last time I tried it a few months ago. My issue with the Insider is that I only think about it when there's a headline that grabs me, but I would never join just to read a particular story.
posted by rcade at 08:39 PM on November 26, 2004
I told him the more ESPN hides its content, the more I go elsewhere. 100% agreed. My espn fantasy sports login used to work for insider access, but it's been maybe a year or so since it's worked.
posted by mbd1 at 02:44 PM on November 28, 2004
I'm Kareem--thanks for the insightful comments. Some new stuff that I have not heard yet from others. > Filtering comments - I should have known. They just don't get it. For the record, comments are manually approved so that spam does not get through. I don't filter any comments, and especially not ones that aren't favorable towards ESPN (how else are we supposed to figure out what will make you guys come back?) Admittedly, one of the big competitive hurdles we face is one most of you mention: we charge for our analysis, while it is offered for free on sites like Sportsline, Yahoo, CNNSI, etc. That being said, I would take our analysts head-to-head with anybody's (Chad Ford has a tremendous NBA network that he allows us to be a part of, for example). One of the big draws we offer is that you get an ESPN The Magazine subscription free with your Insider subscription. We also have Insider tools that appeal to Fantasy players, and a vast array of Fantasy-specific content. But none of that really speaks to the point all of you raise: it's hard to compete with Free. Either we need to do a better job of marketing the content that we do have, or we need to show you guys why it's so compelling that you should pay for it. Thanks for your suggestions--if you have more, please feel free to email me at kareem at reemer dot com. Thanks! kareem
posted by lew at 04:03 PM on November 28, 2004
For the record, comments are manually approved so that spam does not get through. I thought that might have been the case, but of course I thought of it after I posted. Either we need to do a better job of marketing the content that we do have, or we need to show you guys why it's so compelling that you should pay for it. But, by all appearances, you're not - you're simply putting more and more of what was once free content behind lock and key. I'm sure some people will pay, but I'd bet more people will leave. So you'll have a smaller audience that's willing to pay... hardly the formula for "The Worldwide Leader." I really like ESPN, but it gets more corporate and money-sucking (repetitive, I know) everyday. You've got to pay for that NBA TV contract somehow, but I feel very strongly that Insider is not the way to go.
posted by dusted at 06:29 PM on November 28, 2004
Because of a bookkeeping error on ESPN's side (I paid only once, and they never unsubscribed me) I was an Insider from late 1996 or early 1997 until this winter. I liked it; lots of quality writing, as kareem/lew says, and some information you can't get elsewhere (Neyer comes to mind.) I too dislike the creeping commercialism of the web, but I pay for several magazines I like, and I figure espn.com falls under the same rules- at some point, these folks have to get paid, and I realize ads aren't necessarily enough. All that said, I refuse to resubscribe for a simple reason: I get enough junk mail already, and ESPN the Mag is the biggest, shiniest, junkiest junk mail there is. If I could easily get a subscription without getting physically spammed by The Mag and/or giving my address to ESPN, I'd be more than happy to. But I can't seem to find an option to do that.
posted by tieguy at 10:29 PM on November 28, 2004
lew, don't worry, now that the election is over, 'Insider' subscription will pick up, regardless of any changes to its marketing methods.
posted by garfield at 08:25 AM on November 29, 2004
Wouldn't let me post my comment, so I'll add it here in case the Reemster comes looking: I would only pay if Insider offered a substantial amount of streaming video of soccer matches, like all the Champions League matches save one per game day, that I can't see on ESPN or FoxSportsWorld. One other possibility is if a group blog community were to develop such as we have at SportsFilter. Otherwise, as previous posters said, the free content is extremely competitive.