ESPN pay cuts?

Hence why I said “almost.”

 

It means you're normal? Reporters, editors, etc., in (my former) business have been getting laid off for years with little or no fanfare. This is bigger news because some of them are national figures, but I don't think any of them are hurting for money (unlike a 35K per year newspaper guy) or will be schlepping around too long for their next gig, if they even need to work.

Shit happens. This week it happened to people you've heard of, instead of to 20-30-40 people at the LA Times or some other place you'd never heard of.

As my wife is wont to say, "Doesn't change my life," and she's right. I like Suzy Kolber and by all accounts she's a stand-up woman, but she'll be OK and if I don't see her on TV it's no big deal to me.

 

13 or so years ago, I saw 80 people fired at the paper/TV station I worked at. THAT was terrifying because I knew most of them didn’t make much.

The big-time ESPNers will be fine as long as they aren’t too extravagant.

The only part that’s a struggle is I may be competing with some of them for a couple of the avenues I’m looking at.

Every day now has a theme. Today is Organizational Day. Getting my life together. Clearing out cars, cleaning up my resume again, getting my video files together (for my long shot tries to get to a huge market — just in case) and also most list building of contacts. I enjoy the process of this.

 

Damn. So sorry to hear, exmediahack. Go do what you want to do now, even if that's just kicking back.

I beat my head against enough doors in radio to realize pretty quickly that Ernie Harwell wasn't moving out of the way for me. I thought I had a better shot in print, but glad I saw the literal writing on the wall before I committed too much more of my energy. And almost 15 years with Turner made up for a lot of overnight board shifts and high school tabs.

Still, sucks to not go out on your own terms. However, retirement is a nice consolation prize.

 

Two others leaving the WWL's payroll: Boxing commentators Max Kellerman and Andre Ward.

 

Doug Kezirian cut. He was the leading gambling analyst for the network

https://thespun.com/more/top-stories/two-more-big-names-are-leaving-espns-following-fridays-layoffs

 

Has Skipper and LeBatard's venture launched yet?

 

Two years ago.

 

That stinks for Doug. Good dude.

Also a concern for me in the sports betting content space. While the books are growing and growing, we’ll see their winnowing down as well.

Some states have 20 different sports books (Colorado, Ohio, Iowa come to mind). The less successful books are already starting to merge with the DK, FanDuels, Caesars, Fanatics. It’ll be like TV stations in five years with 5 books running 85 percent of the market.

 

One more....https://www.nj.com/sports/2023/07/espn-cuts-another-prominent-analyst.html

 

So Woj and Pollock are gone from College Game Day, but they still devote minutes to that Bear guy, who adds nothing (IMHO)?