The first one was created about 6 years ago by @vtdlang, so I figured I'd go ahead and make another one with a big round of ESPN layoffs coming soon.
Original thread can be found here: https://www.thekeyplay.com/content/2017/may/22/ot-sports-media-catch-all...
-About a week ago, The Athletic got hit pretty hard by layoffs. They let go of 20 sports journalists with another 20 being reassigned.
https://apnews.com/article/athletic-journalists-layoffs-new-york-times-d...
-While ESPN layoffs began in April, it did not include on-air talent at the time. The on-air layoffs are expected to begin to roll out in late June, but we already have a few names that we know will not be returning to the network at the end of their contracts like Chris Chelios and Neil Everett.
https://nypost.com/2023/06/05/nhl-analyst-chris-chelios-among-espns-payr...
https://frontofficesports.com/sportscenter-anchor-neil-everett-leaving-e...
Comments
ESPN is scrapping it's morning radio/TV show "Keyshawn, JWill, and Max."
Mike Golic, former co-host of "Mike and Mike In The Morning," laments the sad state of affairs.
What I find amusing is that Awful Announcing did a piece this morning about how Max Kellerman has never quite seemed to find his place at ESPN -- he was recently kicked off of "First Take", and soon his afternoon TV time slot will be given to Pat McAfee. And then right after that, the news dropped that the radio show was getting canned as well.
I also learned today that Kellerman was the original host of "Around the Horn". But of course, the show really took off with Reali.
He must be low paid, cause they've gotten rid of his way better than him, yet he still shuffled around
He might be willing to take less just to keep a job. Some of the higher profile people over the years that have been let go were actually offered deals to stick around at a smaller salary, but refused. Neil Everett is the most recent, Kenny Mayne a couple years back comes to mind as well. Not begrudging those that refuse. Each person is different. Sometimes it makes sense to move on and get money else where, sometimes it makes sense just to keep a job even if it means sacrifices.
Kenny Mayne was wasted at ESPN. He never fit in at the Disney version of ESPN. Over the years ESPN has removed all the counter culture stuff that made them different and great. The commercials were way wilder in the past, Page 2 was fantastic. Now they are just a bunch of guys yelling over each other There isn't need for good writers and journalist like Kenny, they just need loud people.
Sports media, specifically ESPN, has just become who can have the hotter take, and who can write the best feel good piece on draft night. Virtually any and all sports journalism has gone to written paywall articles and podcasts like mentioned above, which honestly I'm fine with. My memories of trying to wait to the last possible minute Friday mornings to get on the bus to go to school after one of our Thursday night games is pretty much gone because I can get more in depth coverage from one of the many VT podcasts.
I mainly only watched the Kellerman version of Around the Horn. My TV stayed on ESPN when I was younger. I guess that's a decent trivia question for sports folks.
Big same. Countless summer and weekend mornings as a kid spent watching the same episode of SportsCenter on rerun, and still somehow finding each rewatch as interesting as the first watch. Enjoying the creative and funny ESPN around-the-office ads. Now, they're a shell of what they used to be. That sounds familiar...
If The insinuation is that ESPN should be what it used to be; it can't. The landscape has changed. Can't have business around scheduling highlights and reruns when they're available for free and at any time online.
No insinuation. I just miss the old ESPN. I'm well aware the landscape has changed.
I have no reason to tune in to them now. Why would I watch a bunch of people yell about sports, when I could BE the person yelling about sports?
I remember when they were pushing Around the Horn before and during its beginning. Despite Woody Paige being a regular guest, Kellerman was routinely the most obnoxious person on it as the host. Tony Reali was indeed an improvement. I didn't know Max was still working at ESPN up till very recently.
In regards to the Golic quote, I get the sentiment but radio is dead. Podcasting killed it. There's little need to tune into a radio show at a designated time when I can just fire up a podcast any time I want and skip parts that I don't want to listen to. ESPN's main fault isn't messing with their radio lineup years ago, its not having foresight and using its vast resources to build out a podcasting platform years ago
they should've listened to bill simmons
Sports radio is something to listen to while driving, usually during a commute.
My problem is that I only live 10 minutes from work, so most of what I end up hearing is ads.
Normal people can't watch that show, thus its being cancelled. good.
Radio as a whole is becoming a dying medium -- Craig Carton left his role at WFAN afternoon drive in the NYC market to focus entirely on the FS1 national morning tv show. Carton being one the most prominent over-the-air radio voices nationally
Sports radio is basically going through what most newspaper sports sections have gone through.
Most consumers in an area/city care most about the local teams, but regional papers/radio shows cannot afford to keep the lights on and pay talent (and still make the profits that their corporate overlords demand). National outlets can afford the talent (mostly, they also have to generate exponential growth for their corporate overlords), but focus more on the "national brands" (Yankees/Red Sox, Lakers, Cowboys, SEC, etc.) because it gets the most customers. So the only radio shows that you end up with are large, multi-market shows that are just regurgitating the same old stuff. So everywhere you go, TV, radio, online, or newspaper, you get the same four or five discussions. Unless you follow one of the brands, you no longer have a good place to find the coverage that you want.
I think that - in general, across all mediums - it's really difficult to stay profitable with (non-targeted) ad-based content. The only way to be profitable by (just) selling (again, non-targeted) ads is if you have mass-market appeal (like the NFL).
The alternative is to sell your content directly to consumers (like Split Zone Duo, TKP, etc). But, to do that, you need to be able to provide unique and evergreen content.
At it's core, compelling sports radio is local in nature, passionate, and suggests it has some hidden inside information that they can't talk about. ESPN radio and other radio is failing because it has become homogenous, low brow (click-baity), and non-regional in terms of presentation style.
If the industry wants to live, start by stopping all students going into sports media from adopting "non-regional dialect." What made commentators and announcers engaging was those elements that made them stand out individually- Red Barber and Keith Jackson's colloquialisms, Madden's drivel, Steve Sommers rap, Joe Beningo's sincere meltdowns... etc.
This is a great take.
Adam Schein and Mike Greenberg ruined it. MadDog Russo and Tony Kornheiser would ask Fuente about being fired. Schein wouldn't, Greenberg wouldn't- because they might want him on the show again. Schein had Antonio Brown on the week he walked off the field and didn't touch the topic. It would be the first thing Russo asked. When Mike and Mike in the morning had athletes on spouting cliches and not asked a remotely interesting or tough question, that was the end of quality sports talk radio. Nobody is going to tune into Tom Brady saying "Gotta play hard this week, one game at a time, this is a great team we are playing"... nobody. That is Scheins entire show. Fluff, no serious questions, garbage.
This is seen very clearly at the most successful sports radio stations -- for instance at WFAN, the only non NYC media market native is .... Tiki Barber, who played his entire career for NYG and is in the Ring Of Honor. When WFAN needs to add to their programming, they pull the NYC guys off CBS sports radio. They're connected through parent company Audacy. The national shows are lame, everyone knows it, and regional NYC radio is the much bigger opportunity
IMO The Athletic stuff is more a function of their business model than the industry at large. They took VC money, tried to grow as fast as possible, the get purchased at a high valuation. The goal was to gain marketshare first, and figure out profitability later.
Well, now they're trying to do the latter.
And "they" (the athletic) don't even have to figure out the profitability. NYT does 🤷♂️
FiveThirtyEight got hit with a large number of layoffs as Disney decided to scale down the scope of the website. It appears that they're going to really pare down their sports coverage. Today, they froze all of the sports forecasts and projections.
I've enjoyed 538's sports coverage over the years, so I hate that it's going to get shoved to the side.
A Qatari firm (not going to get political in here) is buying minority stake in Monumental Sports Network. Rumors are Ted Leonsis wants to purchase MASN and put all the DC teams (minus the Commanders) under one general network / umbrella.
Now all we need to do is bring the Commanders back into the city and I'd be one happy DC boy.
MASN was also the major roadblock from the Lerners selling the Nationals to Leonsis. If MASN is acquired, then the Nats deal may be able to be renegotiated and finalized.
The problem with hoping a MASN deal gets done is it is Peter Angelo's stick in the MLB he lords over the Nats. Angelo's owns 77% of MASN. Leonsis would have to offer him a sweetheart deal to get him to let go of MASN because it would also entail determining if Orioles coverage would continue under MASN.
Okay...now it's making sense. I hadn't realized Comcast sold off NBC Sports Washington, which explains the name change.
And if them buying MASN means we can get better quality control on the ACC RSN games, I'm all for it. Although, once the ACC RSN deal goes away (either because Raycom can't get enough broadcast outlets or it just expires in a few years), I won't care. The only time I use the RSNs are VT games, Commanders preseason, and whenever the Yankees are playing the local teams.
Neil Everett leaving ESPN hurts my heart. Waking up in hotels at baseball tournaments having Neil wake me up at 6-7am is just good memories.
He is the best.
Bartender! Jack and Coke!
I appreciated his effort to give us the game times in Eastern Standard and Hawaiian.
Whoa, ESPN letting go of A LOT of on-air talent
https://nypost.com/2023/06/30/espn-laying-off-top-talent-to-save-millions/
McShay is the biggest surprise to me there. They have gradually been building him into an all things NFL the last couple years. Keyshawn a surprise only because of the back and forth he gets into with Stephen A.
I read the news/rumors about the upcoming cuts a few months back so when I saw a new guy pop up on the draft this year along with Kiper and McShay, I knew McShay was probably gonna be cut. No way ESPN was gonna pay 3 guys to do the same job and they likely weren't gonna cut Kiper. McShay became the odd man out
I would have been ok with Kiper going away. To not have to see that hair ever again can't happen soon enough.
How does Mike Greenberg keep surviving these cuts. He's making $6 mil a year and doesn't bring anything unique to ESPN. I'd much rather see him go than a lot of the others they've canned.
Supposedly he's beloved by hire ups
David Pollack of College GameDay is now out.
I hope some one hires him to call games, he was one of the better ones.
That's a bummer but I figured someone had to go once they paid Pat McAfee the big bucks. Would have preferred it to be Howard or Herbstreit though. Those two don't really bring it anymore and Pollack in his time there has been more informative. Really the move should be to force Lee Corso to retire. I get it. He's a legend. I'm sure the crew and ESPN love the man but he clearly can't do it anymore.
I'm guessing Corso isn't getting paid much.
Most sites seem to peg him at a salary of $54k, so yeah, not enough for Disney to care since he likely still brings in viewers.
Saw the same number. Just a passion project for him at this point.
Corso is an old Coach at heart. He's been around long enough to have seen quite a few older coaches retire and then die right afterwards. I have to think that fear weighs heavily on his mind so he will almost never retire voluntarily. I also think that ESPN is aware of this and is okay with keeping him around for such a low price tag. I wouldn't be surprised if they somewhat defer to Kirk,
ChrisRece, and Dez on whether to keep him around. As long as they are okay with it, it's worth the relatively low price.I think he's earned the right to hang on as long as he wants and is at least somewhat capable of doing a few segments each week, even if it ends up just being the picks and mascot head at the end of Gameday. It's just a really unique situation that we probably won't see again in our lifetimes without serious changes to the entertainment industry.
What about Rece?
Whoops. Thanks.
Should have not gone with MaCfee his shtick just seems the same as every other barstool type personality. Go over the top, wear a wife beater and have hot takes.
I don't mind McAfee in general, but I hate him on gameday.
They're not getting rid of Herbstreit. He's too valuable in their eyes.
Really, it probably came down to Desmond vs Pollack, and Desmond has more name recognition.
As long as we are talking about media, it's truly impressive how efficiently Elon Musk has absolutely destroyed Twitter. Today's implementation of a 300/600 tweet views limit per account is insane, and if you're an advertiser on the platform I'm not sure how it's worth the cost anymore.
The "data scraping" excuse is bulkshit. The Google contract ended on Jun 30th. Dumbass didn't pay his bill.