More ESPN Layoffs Coming After Thanksgiving, ‘SportsCenter’ Included, Making Employees ‘Queasy’ [Report]
About 100 ESPN staffers will get pink slips after the 2017 Thanksgiving holiday in yet another round of layoffs, according to media reports. This will be the second round of layoffs at the self-named Worldwide Leader in Sports media network this year.
In April, ESPN — which is still drowning in red ink and dragging down parent company Disney — let go about 100 employees, many of whom were familiar public-facing names, including on-air anchors, commentators, and website writers, and is still cutting severance checks to many of them on multi-year deals whose contracts haven’t officially expired. In the summer of 2013, the Bristol, Connecticut-based network jettisoned hundreds of production support staff, as it did again in October 2015.
Evidently the flagship SportsCenter broadcast is likely to be included in the Thanksgiving downsizing, Sports Illustrated (which typically has good sourcing in these matters) reported.
“The layoffs, which were described by a person briefed on the plans, will hit positions across ESPN including front-facing talent on the television side, producers, executives, and digital and technology staffers. The SportsCenter franchise is expected to be hit hard—including on-air people—given the frequency of the show has lessened considerably on main network ESPN….Multiple ESPN employees in speaking with SI said the atmosphere in Bristol is tense, especially in the SportsCenter division. Asked to characterize how employees are feeling, one longtime on-air anchor offered one word: ‘Queasy.'”
ESPN will lay off more than 100 staffers after the Thanksgiving holidays. @SINOW Media: https://t.co/Dpoh9cjlf4
— Richard Deitsch (@richarddeitsch) November 9, 2017
The Hollywood Reporter also confirmed the impending post-Thanksgiving ESPN layoffs, although ESPN has yet to issue a comment.
Against this backdrop, the revamped 6 p.m. Eastern version of SportsCenter (SC6 or The Six) on ESPN, anchored by Jemele Hill and Michael Smith, has failed to find an audience despite a big marketing push as well as all the notoriety surrounding Hill’s controversial Twitter activity.
ESPN has lost about 14 million subscribers (and thus, an enormous amount of revenue from cable and satellite providers at $7 per household) through cord-cutting and other reasons since 2011, and overall viewership is also down significantly. The sports network also overpaid for telecast rights fees to pro and college leagues, which is crushing the bottom line.
Separately, falling NFL ratings have also adversely affected viewership for shows such as Sunday NFL Countdown on ESPN, now hosted by Samantha Ponder who succeeded Chris Berman, which is down 15 percent, the Sporting News detailed. There has even been some chatter that to save money, ESPN could drop Monday Night Football, which costs it $2 billion a year, when the current contract with the NFL expires.
ESPN has received some bad press recently for several miscues that raised questions about top management decision-making. These include pulling broadcaster Robert Lee from a University of Virginia football game because his name was similar to that of the Confederate general, suspending the above-mentioned Jemele Hill for two weeks with pay for calling for a boycott of NFL advertisers in violation of the company’s social media guidelines (but not suspending her after accusing President Trump of white supremacy), and cancelling Barstool Van Talk after just one episode in a sexism/misogyny flap with Barstool Sports.
As the Inquisitr has detailed, ESPN has also alienated many politically conservative viewers (or former viewers) through its emphasis on social justice issues rather than just delivering games and game highlights. ESPN’s public editor has previously acknowledged ESPN’s leftward direction, which has drawn criticism from Fox Sports Radio host Clay Travis (who satirically calls the network “MSESPN”) as well as ex-ESPN journalist Jason Whitlock of Fox Sports 1, among others. Travis has compared ESPN’s business model to the defunct Blockbuster Video.
The Inquisitr will closely monitor additional developments in the ESPN layoffs, which may or may not be a happy Thanksgiving for “queasy” employees trying to enjoy a holiday meal, so check back regularly.
[Featured Image by Bob Child/AP Images]
