ESPN Zone: R.I.P.

[DFW HOYA]

Closing for good.

www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jA-9DQ6KacJocEhKZDuMxqw_eOpwD9G7SO0G5

[SirSaxa]

The one in NYC was ridiculously expensive. Don't know about the others.

[hifigator]

The only one that I ever went to was in Las Vegas and I was rather disappointed. In fairness, it is tough to compete in Las Vegas where so many other places are subsidized by the casinos. But in any case, I didn't find anything to be especially memorable.

[AustinHoya03]

There's just no market for American lagers, terrible/overpriced food and terrible service in this economy.

Why did ESPN think it could compete in cities stacked with local sports bars? ESPNZone might have worked in St. Louis or San Antonio, but there's no way I'd ever watch a rugby/soccer/Caps game at the Zone in DC. There are other, better places to do that. The games downstairs were perhaps the only competitive advantage ESPN had. I suppose not enough families want to take their kids to a gigantic sports bar (or sports "zone").

[hifigator]

Obviously, you have been proven right Austin. But I don't think it's a fundamentally flawed concept. I think someone could make it work. If the food is decent and the service is decent, then it could work. It could sort of be thought of as an Ale House meets Chuck E Cheese. I think you could successfully cater to the all-age crowd with more of a focus on the bar angle later at night. The benefit of knowing that all the games would be on somewhere in the place as well as the ESPN name should be enough help a place compete in an otherwise competitive market, IF the product is decent. Oh well. Sayonara Zone

[PhillyHoya]

The DC one sucks. The food is bad, the service is bad and the video games are the same ones that were there almost 10 years ago.

[GIGAFAN99]

What's sad is that they had the right idea on very slow expansion and still failed.

The problem, as with almost every Disney side venture, is nobody has any idea what the goal of ESPNZone is. Is it promoting ESPN? Is it a mini-theme park? Is it a casual dining restaurant? Is it a sports bar?

The answer was "no" to all of those. Disney thinks if things flash, people will buy cheese fries for $13.95 because of the brand. And brand automatically equals success regardless of the actual customer experience, right?

For my next trick I'll interview Jake Gyllenhaal wearing mouse ears during an NBA finals game on ABC.

[hoyainspirit]

I will always have fond memories of great times at the Baltimore location. Go Saints!

[hifigator]

Giga, well said and you put in particular detail what I was saying in theory. Again, IF the product itself is good -- the food and the service -- then I think the "benefit" of the ESPN name and the secondary draws -- multiple HD TVs, wide variety of video games, appeal to all ages -- could be enough to distinguish the place in an otherwise crowded and tough market. But it all starts with the product itself. The overwhelming opinion of everyone here is that the product itself failed miserably. When that's the case, you simply can't overcome the added expenses of all of those perks. Good thing I don't have a dog in this fight, and thus glad I'm not going to lose any sleep over it.