OT - Chad Ford and Marc Stein also out at ESPN

Submitted by 5th Van Tyne on

I have no idea where ESPN is expecting to get any sort of meaningful sports writing with some of these layoffs.  The only people left will be talking heads like Jemele Hill and Stephen A. Smith, who I don't care to watch at any time.  

If Zach Lowe gets canned, ESPN's NBA coverage will go to utter shit.

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VicTorious1

April 28th, 2017 at 10:20 PM ^

I think SVP is still there. Some of the Sports center folks are still there as well. It's not just Stephen A. and Jemele (despite being annoying) who are remaining. It would be hard to run a network with just those two. After awhile, we won't even miss most of these contributors. ESPN's staff is significantly larger than the 100 or so folks they let go.

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FGB

April 28th, 2017 at 10:53 PM ^

I'm not trying to be a dick, i legitimately am not aware of a single person who watches Sportscenter, or why someone would. 

For those who do, why?  It just seems like a 5-times-as-long-way to get the same highlights you can get immediately online, but then you also have to listen to people who provide analysis like "did you know Jabrill Peppers plays offense, defense, AND special teams?  It's true!"  (+1 Insightful!)

Joined: 09/24/2009

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mbrummer

April 29th, 2017 at 12:42 AM ^

Take this all with a grain of salt, because of my unique situation.  I'm a stay at home Dad with a 18 month old.

So 14 months ago,  when I started to stay at home.  I turned on SC in the mornings out of habit.  I found out I couldn't watch it.  Realize it is background, I'm feeding the baby, changing the diapers, making sure he's not endangering himself.

 It was so terrible and getting worse, if I wanted to listen to twitter feeds I would follow.  They have a dedicated person that spends 10 minutes on social media feeds, and then the spend 10 minutes talking about themselves

I tried cable news, local news for a day makes me want to go deaf.

But I can't just look at my computer at highlights, A my computer time and screen time is distracted, my toddler loves slamming my laptop down.  

The insane part is, SC in the morning doesnt even provide highlights.  I want the late highlights in the morning.  Playoff games and even the Bball national title game get no package in the morning, now these NBA playoff games are ending when I'm asleep, I want highlights and I can't get them.

To be fair I never understood the 6pm SC.  Competing with local news? By then the highlights are stale

Joined: 07/29/2008

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stephenrjking

April 29th, 2017 at 2:16 AM ^

I don't like what the 6pm show has become from what I've seen but I understand the premise, catching up on news of the day and setting up for stuff in the evening. Pregame, as it were.

I'm on board with you. The few times I've tried to turn on SC for highlights recently (what highlights of the Michigan game? I heard there was a great finish in [insert random game of random major sport here], what happened?) I've been grievously disappointed.

Thing is, I don't find most internet highlight packages to be all that user friendly yet. But given how laborous SC makes it, it's still easy just to poke around on a website for a few minutes to find the highlights than sit through whatever it is that they're broadcasting.

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LSAClassOf2000

April 28th, 2017 at 10:48 PM ^

I am going to say that he who shall not be named in this forum might be better for "Outside The Lines" only because that's the sort of coverage he is familiar with and better able to make up at the spur of the moment. It would turn into something similar to "Frontline", but without actual on-air talent and only about a third as old as the average person currently working on the show. 

Joined: 01/07/2011

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Qmatic

April 28th, 2017 at 10:24 PM ^

Stephen A makes 3.5 million a year and Jemele makes over a million now with her SC6 gig. They could have saved a lot of talent had they let the two of them go.

Joined: 01/09/2013

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Mr. Yost

April 28th, 2017 at 10:30 PM ^

They're going to rehire some of the positions at lower salaries.

But yes...no need to pay talking heads that much, but that's where they wanted to go. That said, it really wasn't going to save ESPN either way.

We no longer need ESPN to get up to the minute sports news. At this point it's all live sports and talking heads. If you watch the 6p or SVP 11p SportsCenters, it's more talking than anything else.

If Stephen A gets ratings...may as well pay him I suppose. Can't really do anything else other than bump your internet/mobile/social media presence. We're connected from the moment we wake up to the moment we go to bed...we don't need to sit down and watch SportsCenter anymore. At this point if you're watching SportsCenter, there's a good chance you just like the background noise and nothing else is on...or you love/hate the talking heads. But you're not rushing for news and highlights like you may have been 10-15 years ago.

Joined: 07/25/2011

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Wolfman

April 29th, 2017 at 1:27 AM ^

Steven A. 3.5 million a year all from espn? If so, unbelieavable. I grew so sick of him and the metrosexual he was parterned with trying to prove their street cred by dropping lines you might have heard from an 11th grad h.s. student three years prior to them using it. Had to have been the idea of the producer because I can't imagine that candy-ass that was playing j.v. basketball as a junior because his game was more "Steve Kerr" like in a fast break oriented program. I'm buying that shit alright. 

Joined: 07/23/2008

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bacon

April 28th, 2017 at 10:28 PM ^

Good. Less content and more cross promotion. I can't wait until the whole channel is idiots and commercials, so their business model can collapse. /s

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Duke of Zhou

April 29th, 2017 at 12:11 AM ^

And Dana O'Neil, who I think is a good writer. They fired pretty much their best baseball, college basketball, hockey and soccer writers.  It's too bad because although I have no use for the non-game content on the TV network, I thought they had some decent writers online.

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bronxblue

April 28th, 2017 at 10:36 PM ^

Surprised about Stein; seemed like he had a thing going there.

Ford basically shows up for 2 months a year and then vanishes.  I can't imagine he has a huge salary, but also not surprised he'd be a low-hanging fruit to get rid of.

Joined: 11/22/2008

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Wolfman

April 29th, 2017 at 1:53 AM ^

Not surprised Joey made the cut so far. Kind of figured his salary was fairly low based on what I perceived to be "still in the learning process."

Reading all those names made me look at it under two different lights. No. 1, obviously that one great idea spawned a hell of a lot of money and therefore they - espn - became more than just a sports channel with a few jobs. So the fact they were able to give so many a start in the industry is a good thing, but at the same time really brings into focus what we all knew. They were spending way too much money on providing the same news all day long and allowed the viewer to decide which personality would bring him the news. Really no need for that in an era where everything can be programmed to be viewed later. 

A little surprised Kannell was the only one to say goodbye as if they espn were making a mistake, while actually telling everyone he simply wasn't viewed as being good enough to keep it, "After pouring my heart into espn for the last 8 years, made the commitment by moving my family to CT 5 years ago to have it all end in three minutes." Possible that is all the time it took to decide he wasn't good enough. His colleagues didn't really speak that nicely about him. Made him sound like an instigator.

Was a little surprised that I did not see any of the four espn personalities one survey had as among the most over paid personalities in sports. I know Boomer was on there for 3 mil a year for doing some football stuff. Gruden is still the highest paid unless he has been canned since this report came out at 4.3 mil a year for 17 Mondays, not even during the best weather. Bayless, one 1/2 a million a year, but he did stay. Probably about the same as Galloway makes. Galloway has a chance to improve though. Still pretty young. Rick Reilly was the fourth at 3.4 million a year. Have no idea how the brain trust never had any idea they were over paying so damn many people for setting around discussing the spoort they loved. Some were able to use it as  natural  part of the move into the job, still understanding presenting it to a nationwide audience required a little different technique, therefore, work on perfecting your craft. 

Joined: 07/23/2008

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Yeoman

April 29th, 2017 at 2:00 PM ^

...tend not to publicly badmouth employers on their way out the door. Maybe Kannell's the one axee that doesn't have a future career to look out for.

A true story for those that don't know why it's a bad idea: a friend took a new (and much better and more lucrative) job some years back and didn't hold back in his exit interview.

A few months later his new boss had a new boss...the same guy my friend had lit into at the exit interview. Turns out he wasn't the only person at the old company looking to get out....

He didn't last the week--we figure the boss's boss sat down with the boss and said "you've got a choice, you can fire him or I can fire you." His next job was found in desperation and wasn't nearly as good as the first had been.

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BeatOSU52

April 28th, 2017 at 11:05 PM ^

I am curious who covers NBA draft coverage after Ford is done at the end of June?  Seemed like Ford was there one and only guy doing it for them in terms of content.

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M-Dog

April 29th, 2017 at 12:50 AM ^

Just go with live sports and a handful of anonymous (cheap) play by play folks and be done with it.

Everything else is a waste of time.

 

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AnthonyThomas

April 29th, 2017 at 1:16 AM ^

ESPN is gutting it's online presence/infrastructure. They're banking on SC and all of the gyms that play First Take to keep them afloat.

And live sports, of course.

Joined: 11/13/2010

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fksljj

April 29th, 2017 at 1:38 AM ^

Say what you want about Stephen A Smith but the man brings in the ratings. We all knew he was safe. As for Jemille Hill, I can't explain that one.

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