ESPN is a popular sports broadcaster that delivers all of the fan favorite games, sports news, and scores. ESPN, one of the largest cable networks in the United States, was established in 1979 by William Rasmussen and is based in Bristol, Connecticut (The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2023). ESPN broadcasts multiple sports including some of my personal favorites: basketball, baseball, football and golf. ESPN even has its on-theme music which would be very obvious to anyone that has heard of ESPN. Personally, I am a fan favorite of ESPN. I love watching sports, and I even watch a daily recap on Snapchat of sports that I may have missed.

In this discussion, I will be covering the ESPN Mobile Phone and the failure that came along with it. ESPN's Mobile Phone was an attempt at trying to make an entire phone broadcast live sporting events. This plan backfired when the phone was considered to be too expensive for its buyers. According to "The Worst Products" (2006), "Customers balked at the hefty price tag of $199 for the phone, plus the additional monthly charges that could cost up to $225." Personally, the monthly price would have turned me away even being the avid sports fan that I am.

Gordon (2015) states "The reason for ESPN launching a mobile phone was to bring sports to the masses. In 2006, when the attempt to make this phone was made, Labarge, Chief Technology Officer of ESPN, and his team were building a framework that pulled from the same data as Facebook." In my opinion, the CTO of ESPN had a great vision, just at the wrong time. If they would have been able to broadcast sports on a mobile phone for a cheaper price, this could have been something that could have been very successful in the future.

According to Gordon (2015, as cited in BusinessWeek), "ESPN sunk $150 million into Mobile ESPN, including $30 million on a Superbowl ad for the phone. During this time period, ESPN reached only 6% of its sales target." Knowing how big ESPN truly is, I know that this was detrimental to the company's profits. Most companies would probably have gone bankrupt or spent a significant amount of time trying to pull themselves out of a hole. This project was shut down by the end of 2006 (Gordon, 2015).

I think that the main reason for the phone failure was because of how expensive it would have been to users. $225 a month is almost a car payment in today's society, so there is no telling what that could have gotten you in 2006. Also, the technology in 2006 was not good enough to broadcast sports on a cell phone. This phone probably would have had low resolution which would have been another problem for users. Also, data in 2006 was not what it is today. Users probably would have needed some type of internet connection or high-powered data that would have most likely come from a home. If you were at home, you could have just watched it on the television.

I believe that this could have truly been a good product if it would have come out later, but with mobile phones and access to ESPN, I do not think it would be successful now either. I think that ESPN had a great idea, but it was just too early to try to make technology like this work. I personally would love all sports on a mobile phone, but I would not be able to afford it at $225 a month.

1. Address your classmate by name.
2. Specify your classmate's failed product.
3. Briefly summarize their product failure and why they thought it failed.
4. Do you agree with their analysis? Why or why not.