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ESPN Pulls Plug on Cell Phone Operation
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- Public Discussion (16)
And the business geniuses at Disney and ESPN took this long to figure out that it would be better to license the ESPN name, rather than start a whole new cell phone service company?
- 1 vote
#1 - Thu Sep 28, 2006 11:37 AM EDTWhile I agree with your statement generally, it wasn't exactly a "whole" new phone service company, only partly, Sprint still provided all of the towers, service, etc. ESPN simply rebranded the service, used a specific phone, and added some sports features to the phone.
- 3 votes
Amount spent by Disney developing MVNO: $150 million
Amount spent by ex-Disney employees developing Newsvine: less than $1 million
I'm just sayin'...
- 5 votes
#2 - Thu Sep 28, 2006 12:03 PM EDTDisney just doesn't know what they're doing anymore. The only smart things they've done recently is buy Pixar and make Pirates of the Caribbean into a movie.
- 1 vote
Wow Sean... what do you think of the free shows on abc.com? What about TV Shows and Movies on iPods?
How about gifting White Rhinos to Uganda to help replenish their rhino population?
- 2 votes
Touche, free shows on abc.com is a good idea. As are TV shows and movies on iPods.
Gifting white rhinos is a good idea but doesn't count because that's not a business decision.
I'm also sure there are quite a few other smart things they've done recently. The point I'm making is that they have not done much good stuff recently.
- 1 vote
MVNO's feel like the CLEC's of the late 90's. There is room given the right demographic (pre-paid like Movida and Virgin?), but if it is a large enough demo., the barrier for the 4 major US operators to target them directly is too low.
- 1 vote
#3 - Thu Sep 28, 2006 12:13 PM EDTPerhaps this is why Apple is not doing the MVNO route, but instead partnering with Cingular (I think) to launch their coming iPhone product.
(If it actually exists!)
#5 - Fri Sep 29, 2006 2:14 AM EDTI don't know what ESPN was thinking. It was doomed from the start on two fronts.
First, most people are tied up in cell contracts and it would take 2-3 years for everyone under contract to get to a point where they can switch carriers for free. Sure, you can jump anytime for money. But most people don't do that. And customers may have other reasons for sticking with a carrier, i.e. good signal, family calling plans, etc.
Secondly, this was aimed at sports fanatics. Anyone THAT into sports would have already had a source for constant sports info. They surely had some way to get their fix before the MVNO came along so they are also unlikely to need or want it a new way badly enough to pay for it.
And I wonder if there are really that many fanatical sports fans. This was not a mass-appeal product.
#6 - Sat Sep 30, 2006 1:18 AM EDTThe contract thing shouldn't be much of an issue. If there are 100 million people in the country who have cell phones that would mean over a million people's contracts expire every day (on average).
- 2 votes
That would be true only if one could not renew their contract before it was complete.
- 1 vote
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