OT: ESPN Layoffs Have Begun
This was percolating for a while, but ESPN announced today it's laying off what is reportedly close to 100 people, including quite a few on-air and digital notables, which so far include NFL reporter Ed Werder and NHL columnist Scott Burnside (these are the only two that I saw tweet about their loss of job as of this posting...those laid off are tweeting them out when they get the call).
John Skipper has just sent memo to all @espn employees. Layoffs announced today. Around 50 names you will recognize; another 50 you may not.
— jamesmiller (@JimMiller) April 26, 2017
ESPN UPDATE: I have multiple sources at ESPN telling me they expect the number of layoffs to be closer to 100 people than 70. Awful news.
— Richard Deitsch (@richarddeitsch) April 26, 2017
After 17 years reporting on #NFL, I've been informed that I'm being laid off by ESPN effective immediately. I have no plans to retire
— Ed Werder (@Edwerderespn) April 26, 2017
After 13 years of sticks and pucks can share that as of today my tenure at ESPN is at a close. I look forward to the next adventure.
— Scott Burnside (@OvertimeScottB) April 26, 2017
April 26th, 2017 at 12:32 PM ^
They got out of the music video business because in the internet age nobody is going to wait around their tv to watch a song being performed, when they can just listen to it on their phone/computer whenever they want.
The quality of music is fine today
April 26th, 2017 at 12:44 PM ^
I think it is simply greed. Profits have to continue to grow or people in charge lose their jobs. People in charge do not want to lose their jobs. They will do whatever it takes in order to make more profit. That's turned their product into turds yelling, excessive NY and Boston sports coverage, SEC ball gurgling, and made up tv dramas about ball defaltion. Well I'm a middle class American hockey fan that is always looking for ways to cut costs in our home and I'm not really interested in any of the crap that you're trying to push on me. Luckily I can find what I'm intersted in elsewhere and at a lower cost.
In the vast majority of instances it's to satisfy major stockholders and corporate investors whose metric for financial value is dependent on expansion.
April 26th, 2017 at 11:02 AM ^
Website name checks out
April 26th, 2017 at 11:18 AM ^
There was an appropriately named website called f*ckedcompany.com. We always checked it to see the dotcom bubble burst on another company. They would post internal communications and anything else that a pissed off employee would submit.
Since it's a NSFW site, I can't check to see if it's still in existence and pumping out content today.
April 26th, 2017 at 12:08 PM ^
The site is tehcnically still there, but unforutnately they are on longer pumping out that great content.
April 26th, 2017 at 12:35 PM ^
April 26th, 2017 at 11:06 AM ^
Man this is crazy
April 26th, 2017 at 12:40 PM ^
Shocking, no sec network peeps on the block so far.
April 26th, 2017 at 11:04 AM ^
Get canned.
April 26th, 2017 at 12:49 PM ^
Your wish came true. He gone.
April 26th, 2017 at 11:12 AM ^
Once ESPN started spending more and more time focusing on politcal issues and social justice topics, it lost more viewers than it should have just based on cord cutters. A majority of the time, sports fans turn to sports to escape from the world and politics. The network won't lose viewers by covering and talking more about the sports. As the NFL ratings and ESPN's ratings indicate, viewers will tune off when you begin to politicize it too much. 45 minutes of SportsCenter on Colin Kaepernick and 2 minutes on the NHL is how you lose viewers; the type of viewers that haven't cut the cord yet.
April 26th, 2017 at 11:29 AM ^
1) if editorial decisions had any effect, they were dwarfed by the unbelievably stupid decisions of ESPN leadership to A) bet on subscriber level for payment from cable companies (sound familiar jim delany) and B) literally bid against themselves for broadcast rights resulting in an insane overpay
2) i did not mind the links to politics and felt for the most part such stories were impt for context (which like it or not, sports can't exist outside of it) and when i occasionnally did i stopped following said person(s) and/or did not read the articles. given the continued popularity of espn.com (which has most of the political content i've come across besides twitter of espn journalists) I think most other consumers agreed with me.
Those points aside, I do think ESPN made a programming error by focusing on know-nothing loudmouths who were there just to essentially troll their audience. Steven A----Looking at you.
April 26th, 2017 at 11:27 AM ^
If this is a political issue, because ESPN has spent "more and more time focusing on politcal issues and social justice topics", then how do you explain Fox Sports 1 making a similar amount of layoffs last year, well before Kaepernick and the election?
April 26th, 2017 at 12:33 PM ^
April 26th, 2017 at 11:32 AM ^
April 26th, 2017 at 12:23 PM ^
Comes to mind
April 26th, 2017 at 12:27 PM ^
He specifically said that he dialed back his ESPN consumption, he didn't say anything about never turning on ESPN again.
But to the bigger point, I didn't take his comment that way at all. The poster never said what his feelings were one way or the other, he simply said he didn't like that ESPN makes theirs obvious.
Personally I prefer sports content to stay away from politics, even if the views reflect my own.
I assume you either didn't go to Michigan or don't keep in touch with many friends from Michigan then, do you?
The SJW crap and virtue signaling was defiitely one factor among many. It was probably an attempt to gain more audience. I hate it when people say "sports don't exist outside of poltics they're connected and if it bothers you then blah blah" like their pointing out something super insightul that we don't already know. Some politics sprinkled in when applicable is obviously fine, but when it's the primary focus it can be over the top and distracting from the information your looking for from a sports channel. There's too much competition in the political commentary arena that's already saturated. They should try to be different or better and they were neither. A lot of people like sports and that's one thing we can come together around. Choosing a political side made a large segment leave. Banana.
In terms of the highlights being instant on twitter, although true, I do think there would be value in a show that covered extensive highlights of each game of that night, similar to what BBC does with "Match of the Day". Use a few good analysts from each sport and have them analyze 5 minutes of highlights of 7-10 games a show.
The one problem I have with online highlights is typically you have to watch multiple advertisements, and the highlights are either separate videos by play or by game. Having everything you need on one centralized show would be useful in my opinion.
April 26th, 2017 at 11:14 AM ^
Ed Werder reports, ergo he's gone.
April 26th, 2017 at 11:16 AM ^
Hopefully that blonde who was caught on camera about a year ago belittling an impound worker (?) gets the boot.
EDIT: Just remembered it was Britt McHenry.
April 26th, 2017 at 11:17 AM ^
How has no one in this thread called for Joey Galloway's head yet? That dude is turrrrrible!
April 26th, 2017 at 11:20 AM ^
April 26th, 2017 at 11:21 AM ^
I wonder what this means for the future of the team-specific blogs.
I've been informed that I'm no longer employed at ESPN. Greatly enjoyed covering the B1G, and will immediately try to find a new challenge!
April 26th, 2017 at 11:42 AM ^
ESPN killed their team-specific blog model several years ago. They let some of them go and rolled the rest into a team of guys covering a conference. Austin Ward was technically a B1G reporter, but most of his work covered OSU.
April 26th, 2017 at 11:22 AM ^
ESPN does two things very well. 30 for 30 docs and live sports. Other than that I can't stand it. They are the worst shows on TV.
And ESPN, good luck getting me to ever tune into the 6pm SportsCenter. That won't ever happen again until the current hosts are gone.
April 26th, 2017 at 11:38 AM ^
I loved the 30/30's but it seems like they've devolved into nostalgia about certain teams rather than actual documentaries.
April 26th, 2017 at 11:38 AM ^
Amen to that. SC6 is god awful. I tuned in the other day by mistake (Habit) and turned it right off!! Horrible!
April 26th, 2017 at 11:28 AM ^
/s
April 26th, 2017 at 11:29 AM ^
more focused, quality content like MGB. A fella can hope, right?
April 26th, 2017 at 11:37 AM ^
I think everything Austin Ward wrote for ESPN was a puff piece about Ohio State. He was let go today.
April 26th, 2017 at 11:40 AM ^
I'd love for Albert Breer to be negatively impacted by these cuts somehow. But he's at SI or somesuch. That rumor spreading hack can eat shit.
April 26th, 2017 at 11:40 AM ^
April 26th, 2017 at 12:28 PM ^
But much worse than just watching nothing and refusing to consume the steady diet of bullshit delivered at maximum volume.
April 26th, 2017 at 11:44 AM ^
April 26th, 2017 at 11:51 AM ^
When I was a kid, ESPN showed sports and MTV showed music videos. Today, ESPN shows talk shows about sports and I don't know what the f$%& MTV is showing, but I know it ain't music videos. Neither change benefitted the viewing audience.
April 26th, 2017 at 12:02 PM ^
To be fair, those aren't the same circumstances. Essentially no one would watch MTV now if they played music videos. Lots of people would still watch sports if that's what ESPN showed.