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On-air talent working for NFL Media are bracing for layoffs this week.
The league’s media division – which includes NFL Network and the NFL.com website – is expected to either drop or not renew the contracts of a half dozen or so talents, sources told Front Office Sports.
Jim Trotter, a respected NFL columnist, tweeted his departure on Monday after five years with the league.
“Some personal news: This will be my final week with the NFL Media Group. I was informed over the weekend that my contract is not being renewed. I thank NFL Network and NFL.com for the lessons learned and affirmed over the last five years.”
Trotter twice publicly confronted NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell about the “absence of diversity in management at NFL Media or in the NFL Media newsroom,” noted ProFootballTalk.
Before Super Bowl 57, Trotter stood up at a league press conference and pressed Goodell on whether NFL Media would hire Black managers or Black reporters for its news desk.
One source pegged the number of people impacted in the “single” digits. It’s normal for NFL Media to add and subtract contracts as the group wraps up its fiscal year, he said.
NFL Network, for example, recently hired Sherree Burruss as a new on-air reporter. She made her debut on the national 24/7 network on Feb. 22.
“All costs and expenses at NFL Media are being closely examined in this economic landscape,” said the source.
The New York Post previously reported NFL Media was in the midst of a “strategic review that will result in major cost cuts.”
The NFL Media layoffs come at the same time talent is waiting for the ax to fall at ESPN as part of the Walt Disney Co.’s strategy to slash 7,000 jobs and $5.5 billion in costs.
According to sources, the ESPN layoffs could occur over the next few weeks.
Both NFL Media and ESPN declined to comment.
