ESPN

includes ESPN Fantasy Football, ESPN Digital

14 statements across 6 episodes · 8 bullish · 2 bearish · 6 people on the record · first statement Nov 16, 2018 by Benedict Evans · said 60 times in 16 episodes since 2018 · across every show →

Mentions by year, the whole family

brought up most by James Beshara (25), Michael Copeland (8), Vishal Misra (5), Benedict Evans (5), Jeff Jordan (4), Ryan Spoon (3), Nan Wang (2), Ted Sarandos (1)

tap a year for its mentions
00254508201820192020202120222023202420252026episodesmentions
048201820192020202120222023202420252026episodes it came up in
003468201820192020202120222023202420252026episodesmentions per episode
2026 4 mentions in 2 episodes 2 per episode
2025 3 mentions in 2 episodes 2 per episode
2024 1 mention in 1 episode
2023 2 mentions in 1 episode
2020 1 mention in 1 episode
2019 48 mentions in 8 episodes 6 per episode
2018 1 mention in 1 episode

every mention, scene by scene, with the transcript →

Everything said about ESPN, oldest first

Nov 16, 2018 bullish
Assertion Supported
Evans: Gaming stream viewership is larger than Netflix, HBO, or ESPN
“Watching people play games is now bigger than Netflix, or bigger than HBO, or bigger than ESPN.”
Benedict Evans Nov 16, 2018 ▶ 15:10 The End of the Beginning
Jan 2, 2019
Disclosure
ESPN rejected Tilt's pitch for a Magic Johnson-led LeBron dunk campaign
“We mocked something up overnight, and sent it to Ryan. I was like, we need to do this to where Magic Johnson is hosting a crowdfunding campaign, branded ESPN for LeBron, to the, to do the dunk contest. I thought it was, ah, slam dunk. Actually, that was no pun…”
James Beshara Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 17:37 a16z Podcast | When Fantasy Football and Crowdfunding Collide
Jan 2, 2019 positive
Assertion Not checkable as stated
ESPN signed multiple startup deals from one a16z executive briefing day
“And in six hours probably met 15 companies. This was one of them. And we walked out of there actually with a couple deals, a couple interesting partnerships.”
Ryan Spoon Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 1:20 a16z Podcast | When Fantasy Football and Crowdfunding Collide
Jan 2, 2019 positive
Insight
Requiring Facebook logins elevates online comment and engagement quality for ESPN
“And simple things like using Facebook as a qualifier for conversation. It lifts the quality of engagement.”
Ryan Spoon Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 12:59 a16z Podcast | When Fantasy Football and Crowdfunding Collide
Jan 2, 2019 positive
Prediction Not publicly verifiable
ESPN expects to reach 15 million fantasy sports players this year
“We'll have, I think across all of our fantasy games this year, fifteen million players.”
Ryan Spoon Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 3:44 a16z Podcast | When Fantasy Football and Crowdfunding Collide
Jan 2, 2019 positive
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Native Twitter video playback is ESPN's fastest-growing video segment
“Fastest growing part of our video business is, you know, again, frictionless, one click video play within the Twitter feed.”
Ryan Spoon Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 13:49 a16z Podcast | When Fantasy Football and Crowdfunding Collide
Jan 2, 2019 positive
Assertion Not checkable as stated
ESPN's Tilt integration achieved record feature adoption for the sports network
“I think the CTO was on y'all's side was telling us that it's one of the highest maybe highest uptick in a brand new feature that they've seen.”
James Beshara Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 24:11 a16z Podcast | When Fantasy Football and Crowdfunding Collide
Jan 2, 2019
Assertion Not checkable as stated
ESPN sends personalized video clip alerts within 15 seconds of live plays
“On Saturday, we will cut a thousand live clips from football Across college football, and we'll buzz your phone within 15 seconds of those plays happening on the field.”
Ryan Spoon Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 20:30 a16z Podcast | When Fantasy Football and Crowdfunding Collide
Jan 2, 2019 positive
Assertion Not checkable as stated
ESPN SportsCenter app logged-in user rate grew from 0% to 70%
“Over the last year, you know, we put a gate up in front of our largest Mobile apps, SportsCenter and in a year went from zero percent of people logged in because they were customizing to the device as opposed to the user name, and it's now, you know, around 70…”
Ryan Spoon Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 19:21 a16z Podcast | When Fantasy Football and Crowdfunding Collide
Jan 2, 2019
Assertion Partly supported
Over 55% of ESPN users exclusively access content on mobile devices
“Last month, 55% of our users exclusively accessed us on a mobile device.”
Ryan Spoon Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 21:54 a16z Podcast | When Fantasy Football and Crowdfunding Collide
Jan 2, 2019 bearish
Assertion Supported
Jordan: Cord-cutting is eroding ESPN's subscriber base
“There's enormous disruption in, ah, in the TV business, and the cutting of the cord, the unplugging of the bundles, ESPN's subscribers have started to go down, but people are still consuming sports, so they're consuming them different ways”
Jeff Jordan Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 2:10 a16z Podcast | Hall of Fame Football Meets Venture Capital
Jan 2, 2019 bullish
Prediction Held up
Hammond: Drone racing will be broadcast on ESPN by 2018
“I think we're only a year or two out before this is broadcast on ESPN, because just, it's some of the most exciting things to watch.”
Samuel Hammond Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 35:19 a16z Podcast | Airspace as the Next Internet-Like Platform
Jan 2, 2019 negative
Assertion Partly supported
Jeff Jordan: ESPN and Sports Illustrated are in steep decline
“The iconic Sports media properties, ESPN and Sports Illustrated are both in decline. Sports Illustrated, they're, like, trying to give it away. I mean, it's now down to, like, a dozen issues a year, and, you know, literally they're trying to sell it, and they'…”
Jeff Jordan Jan 2, 2019 ▶ 1:02 a16z Podcast | Eyeballs on the Game
Mar 17, 2026
Assertion Not checkable as stated
ESPN deployed a GPT-3 database query system in production in September 2021
“We deployed this In production at ESPN in September, 21.”
Vishal Misra Mar 17, 2026 ▶ 1:55 Why Scale Will Not Solve AGI | Vishal Misra - The a16z Show
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