ESPN and the rest of the sports media industry were left reeling Tuesday as the mother ship ejected approximately 10 on-air talents while pink-slipping a large contingent of behind-the-scenes staffers at NFL Network.
After speaking with multiple sources, here are my five takeaways from the layoffs, which included ESPN dropping talents such as Ryan Clark, Karl Ravech, David Lloyd, Tom Pelissero, Cam Newton, and Bart Scott.
Blame It on NFL Network Merger
Chairman Jimmy Pitaro made it clear that ESPN’s biggest round of layoffs in three years was tied directly to Disney’s acquisition of NFL Network. Any time two companies merge, the bean counters look at who’s doing what. When they find two people doing the same job—or close to it—one goes out the door.
That’s what’s happening as ESPN absorbs a network it competed with for more than 20 years. ESPN has made “significant progress” integrating NFLN, Pitaro wrote in an internal memo obtained by Front Office Sports. But as always with mergers, it “had to make some difficult decisions,” added Pitaro.
“Year of the Super Bowl”
ESPN will broadcast its first Super Bowl from SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles on Feb. 14, 2027. Televising a Super Bowl has been a corporate dream of ESPN’s since its founding as a scrappy wannabe in 1979. ESPN management and parent company Disney are laser-focused on creating the best, most thorough Super Bowl coverage ever. Anybody on-air during what ESPN is humbly calling its “Year of the Super Bowl” will go down in company history. The competition for those choice on-air slots will be brutal.
The game announce team of Troy Aikman, Joe Buck, Lisa Salters, and Laura Rutledge are locks. Ditto for Sunday NFL Countdown regulars Mike Greenberg, Rex Ryan, Randy Moss, Alex Smith, Tedy Bruschi, and Adam Schefter. And look for legendary anchor Chris Berman to play a major role as the living embodiment of ESPN’s 47-year history.
Studio shows such as Stephen A. Smith’s First Take, Greenberg’s Get Up, and Scott Van Pelt’s midnight SportsCenter will likely broadcast from Southern California. But that still leaves plenty of openings for NFL analysts, anchors, reporters, and insiders to make their mark on the pregame, halftime, and postgame shows—as well as shoulder programming like NFL Live and Monday Night Countdown. Which brings us back to Ryan Clark …
Who Scoops Up Clark’s Gigs?
The race is on. Clark was one of ESPN’s highest-paid NFL analysts, making an estimated $2 million per year. The Sports Emmy winner had some choice gigs too, costarring on NFL Live and Monday Night Countdown, and appearing frequently with his close friend Stephen A. Smith on First Take.
So who gets his seat next to Rutledge, Marcus Spears, Dan Orlovsky, and Mina Kimes on NFL Live? The early money would seem to be on Peter Schrager. He was personally recruited to ESPN by Burke Magnus, the No. 2 executive behind Pitaro. Clark’s on-air outburst at Schrager last September helped grease the skids for his ouster.
A potential wild card: Schrager could be in line for his own show. Still, there are plenty of other options. ESPN’s NFL bench is the deepest in sports. It has Jeff Darlington, Jason McCourty, and Jeremy Fowler, not to mention new NFLN talent, such as Ian Rapoport and Kyle Brandt. Expect a slugfest as everybody competes for Clark’s lucrative and high-profile gigs.
New Power Players in Bristol
These are the first major personnel changes since Mike Foss was promoted to succeed the retiring Dave Roberts at ESPN.
On May 13, Magnus promoted Foss to an EVP executive editor position. Foss is McAfee’s chief ally and corporate liaison. Roberts had long been Stephen A. Smith’s biggest backer, while Magnus personally recruited McAfee and Schrager.
Now both executives are hors de combat.
The future of ESPN’s talent lineup will be primarily decided by Foss and Magnus. Smith politely—but publicly—criticized his bosses for dumping his close friend in Clark when he advocated keeping him. “I’m going to miss him. I am not happy about this decision one bit,” Smith said on his YouTube show. “The bosses know I’m not happy about this decision. I made that very, very clear.” The changing dynamics among ESPN management could be good news politically for McAfee—and bad for Smith.
No Safe Space in Sports Media
Tuesday’s brutal layoffs underscored, once again, that there is no safe space in sports media.
For decades, ESPN was viewed as immune from the painful downsizings that regularly impacted legacy publications like Sports Illustrated. From 1979 to 2009, the fast-growing ESPN grew and grew. Sure, you had to live in the middle of nowhere in Bristol. But at least you had job security compared to your competitors in New York, Washington, Los Angeles, and elsewhere.
Things started to change in 2009, as ESPN let people go for the first time. It’s since become a regular occurrence. In 2017, Trent Dilfer, Britt McHenry, Jay Crawford, and Ashley Fox were among those shown the door. Three years later, ESPN cut 300 mostly behind-the-scenes jobs while eliminating 200 open positions. In 2023, ESPN launched the bloodiest talent layoffs in company history, dumping Jeff Van Gundy, Mark Jackson, Keyshawn Johnson, Steve Young, Suzy Kolber, Max Kellerman, Jalen Rose, Vince Carter, Neil Everett, Andre Ward, Doug Kezirian, Chris Chelios, John Dahl, and beloved PR guru Mike Soltys.
One ex-ESPNer said his old outfit seems to operate on a three-year layoff cycle, ordering major cutbacks in 2017, 2020, and 2023. The layoffs will continue, he predicts, as ESPN finds more redundancies between its own talent and newly acquired NFLN employees.
“They’re oversaturated with NFL people now with the [NFLN] merger. There’s lots of superfluous talent,” he said.
Another TV executive was stunned by ESPN dumping Ravech after 33 years. For decades, the anchor had been the face of ESPN’s baseball coverage. Now, he’s history.
“Wow. 30 years. Legend,” he sighed.
Over the past decade, laid-off ESPNers have used gallows humor to cope with their job loss, jokingly referring to themselves as the “class of 2023” or the “class of 2020.”
As Clark and Ravech might say, “Welcome to the class of 2026.”
