This week ESPN debuted a brand new insanely expensive new WokeCenter AM show starring Mike Greenberg, Michelle Beadle and Jalen Rose. That trio of talent will be making just shy of $15 million a year and ESPN also poured tens of millions of dollars into their brand new studio as well.
As if that weren’t enough ESPN also spent millions and millions of dollars promoting the new show and rolled out their entire marketing platform to ensure viewers were aware the show was launching.
And, well, the show’s officially already ratings disaster.
The show received tens of thousands fewer viewers than SportsCenter did last year on both ESPN and ESPN2. This means ESPN spent tens of millions of dollars to have less viewers than it did before this show even existed. Ratings were down double digits over the same time last year.
Nickelodeon happened to be airing Peppa the Pig head to head for a bit on cable in the nine AM hour. And Peppa the Pig just dunked on ESPN all balls to the face style, posting 753k total viewers. That’s triple what ESPN did in the same hour. (Peppa, get your agent on the phone, stat, you should be making $45 million a year!)
How bad was it for @espn? Peppa the Pig on Nickelodeon did triple the viewership of WokeCenter AM. Hope she's making $45 million a year. This is yet another disaster for ESPN, which fired hundreds of people to spend hundreds of millions on this show: https://t.co/5bElepsvBR
— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) April 3, 2018
As bad as the @espn ratings were I’m also told WokeCenter AM was down over 40% in 18-34 viewership. Over 40%! That’s almost impossible to pull off.
— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) April 3, 2018
That’s just sad, a pig beat out ESPN’s shiny new toy. Welp, back to the drawing board I guess.
