It isn't the biggest sports story of the 21st century, or even the past couple of years, but ESPN laying off 100 employees last week may be second to the Chicago Cubs winning last year's World Series.
Opinions on why so many people were dumped at one time have flowed like red wine in Italy.
Yes, the worldwide leader in sports had become political, but that wasn't why so many hardworking reporters were laid off.
It was the same message that was found on almost every wall in the old Arkansas Gazette building after Bill Clinton, who rented the building for his election headquarters, was elected president.
"The economy, stupid."
It wasn't a campaign slogan but an internal message James Carville wanted every worker to be conscious of every moment of every day.
Someone in Bristol, .Conn., wasn't paying attention.
Since 2010, ESPN has lost 13 million subscribers. The simple math, at an average of $7 per monthly subscriber, comes out to $91 million per month, or a little more than a $1 billion a year.
Understand ESPN's business model has always mostly been based on subscribers. Until recently, when a few viewers started streaming it through YouTube TV or PlayStation Vue, the only way to get ESPN was to pay for cable or satellite feeds.
Actually, the company that started in 1980 had become two business models:
First, you pay for broadcast rights, and then you make viewers sit through the advertisements, which seem to have consumed college and professional games.
As cable bills, including Internet access, soared past the $100 a month to almost $200 a month in some cases, and streaming became a reality, millions of Americans have "cut the cord."
That phrase surfaced about the same time ESPN had its first round of layoffs in 2013. It had another round in 2015 and of course last week with more on-air personalities purged.
Industry experts predict another 10,000 subscribers per month will cut the cord this year.
Perhaps ESPN should tell the public what happened to the decision-makers who signed contracts with the NFL, NBA, MLB and college football.
ESPN owes Major League Baseball a total of $5.6 billion for broadcast rights the next eight years; it owes the NBA 12.6 billion for next nine years; the NFL $15.2 billion for 10 years and college football $5.6 billion.
Those are staggering numbers, especially for baseball and the NBA, whose seasons are so long the average fan doesn't tune in until the playoffs.
Then there's the ESPN-operated Longhorn Network, which has been reported as bleeding money, and all the bowl games ESPN owns or broadcasts.
Last season, ESPN broadcast more than 30 bowl games, and several have been reported as losing big time money.
Bowl popularity took a bit of hit last season when LSU's Leonard Fournette and Stanford's Christian McCaffrey sat out their teams' respective postseason games, yet they still went as the No. 4 and No. 8 picks in last week's NFL Draft.
ESPN started on the strength of a contract with the Big East, a new college conference that became a basketball powerhouse.
It has grown, apparently to too many stations, bowls, contracts and employees.
While it has been widely reported how the economy has affected newspapers, television had managed to stay under the radar, despite widespread layoffs, until last week.
Pundits have pointed fingers at many reasons in the aftermath of last Wednesday's terminations, including those who believe the network had become too political.
That might have been a minor factor, but the fact is the economy finally caught up with ESPN's decision-making.
Sports on 05/02/2017