ESPN pay cuts?

Ha I was just going to come here and say the best thing I can say about Everett-Verrett is they tried really hard to be Olbermann-Patrick or Kilborn-whomever and...were so clearly just a second-generation knockoff trying to create what came naturally for the originals.

 

Always liked him -- Neil brought a level of enthusiasm with him in the endless droll of highlights. But... the business has changed a lot since he got there. Has had a helluva run -- KGMB in Honolulu from 1986 to 2001, ESPN ever since. That's 37 years in the business. He has my deep respect.

Stan Verrett had (and perhaps it's been fixed) a real issue. He stumbles a lot. Tries to sound confident but trips over his tongue... yet HR has never tripped over themselves to let him go during all of the layoffs.

 

Everett was already moonlighting with the Blazers as their pre-game TV host. Wouldn't be surprised if he landed something else in Oregon.

 

Is that something you can fix? It’s one of the reasons I didn’t pursue broadcasting more. I had a major issue with stumbling and couldn’t find a way to get past it.

 

Bless both of you. He was so fucking annoying for decades.
His call outs to his bar buddies in Oregon and Hawaii were stupid and insulting to 99.99% of his audience. And I want to punch his face right after wicked.

 

Advance apologies to @exmediahack, his word is gold and I'm sure Everett is a good dude. But he is single-handedly responsible for me no longer watching ESPN for anything other than live events. The lunge for the remote control whenever I heard his voice was some Pavlov-ian shit.

 

Correct. See also: Britt McHenry a few years ago.

 

All good. We all have different flavors.

I was a Kilborn knockoff in the late-90s in small-market Midwest. A lot of viewers loved it. A lot of viewers didn’t and sent me letters underscoring it.

But my boss liked it because viewers were talking about the sports guy.

 

I don't watch local sportscast anymore. In fact, I started a thread about it. But I would think today a local sportscaster has to be a showman/clown. A local sportscast that just shows highlights will be unable to differentiate their product from video clips on-line.

 

In Boston, the local sportscaster has about 3 minutes a night. There might be a news bit if it's a big game. They have Sunday night recap shows, but that's the extent of their relevance

 

Kilborn, IMO, was hilarious. But, yes, an acquired taste for sure, and maybe last of that type at ESPN.

There are some folks there now who are…not good. The gap between Nicole Briscoe and, say, a lot of people, is pretty vast.

 

The local sports anchor needs to be a reporter. The job is to tell local sports stories, whether that’s pro, high school, whatever. With very few exceptions, the days of showing highlights are over.