ESPN layoffs
Disney laid off about 20 ESPN on-air personalities Friday morning including Jeff Van Gundy, Max Kellerman, Jalen Rose, Keyshawn Johnson, Suzy Kolber, “NFL Countdown” analysts Matt Hasselbeck and Steve Young, NFL draft expert Todd McShay, college basketball analyst LaPhonso Ellis, “SportsCenter” anchor Ashley Brewer, “College GameDay” analyst David Pollack, radio host Jason Fitz, host Jordan Cornette, baseball writer Joon Lee and NBA reporter Nick Friedell. I was surprised that the likes of Kellerman, Van Gundy and Rose were let go. This is the third round of layoffs Disney has conducted with the previous two affecting behind-the-scenes ESPN workers. Looks like Disney is losing a lot of money in many areas including ESPN with less people watching cable and more people streaming. Disney stock has not been great recently for us shareholders. Do you see Bob Iger selling ESPN before leaving Disney once again? Is ESPN letting all these people go in part to prepare to give Shannon Sharpe a big deal? (Edit: Is the large deal given to Pat McAfee via the acquisition of his show by Disney also to blame for the layoffs? Are the likes of Stephen A. Smith untouchable in any subsequent layoffs?) #ESPN #Disney #layoff
Max kellerman been getting dunked on lately but glad for unc fir securing the bag if this is true
@LFuR82 yeah I'm still mad that Stephen A. Smith got his way and Max Kellerman was taken off First Take. Would also be glad if Unc moves to ESPN and secures that bag after how he was treated by Skip Bayless.
Who actually watches ESPN any more?
A lot more than you think but yeah it’s dwindled a lot. I’m more likely to watch them on YouTube than on my cable though
They should just bundle it with SS payments.
It’s because they signed pat mcafee and his team to a HUGE deal. Now they have McCafée content they don’t need as many other talking heads
I heard about Pat McAfee too but I am not all that familiar with him. Apparently the layoffs cut $30 million worth of in-house salaries for ESPN as McAfee will receive just shy of $20 million per year. He claims some of the laid off personalities sent him some nasty texts blaming him for their layoff.
Lots of college football games are still carried by espn so yes it’s still relevant. You also need it for Monday night football.
ESPN also shows the NBA finals so they'd be relevant for a long time to come despite the reduction in revenue and views
Yup 👍
Disney could have axed Joe Buck and Troy Aikman and fans wouldn’t have cared and we’d save $150 million. I swear to god the on-air talent decision makers at ESPN are absolute fucking morons who somehow have veritable blank check to throw massive amounts of money at people without any business case, meanwhile, for tech and product teams building critical stuff, we have to fight tooth and nail for every million
I can feel your frustration. So sorry you have to face this.
My goal is to transfer to these orgs one day
The whole ESPN+ concept is trash. Who keeps a + sign in name but not give access to both ESPN and ESPN+
@lovely boi I agree that frustrates me a lot. Why am I paying all that money yearly for ESPN+ when I can't use it to watch the NBA finals and need to switch to ESPN or ABC which are all owned by Disney? smh