More Cuts at ESPN

Lots of Second Spectrum data analysis with a dash of ZOMG THIS LEAGUE energy

 

Love the ZOMG.

 

I guess my joke about Lowe’s dorky whiteness among that cast fell flat.

 

If you’d called it a cookout, I would have gotten it.

 

Listening to the radio broadcast with Mike Golic on the way home tonight. Golic is an excellent analyst. Insightful without the cliches. I'll also add that Eli Manning being there probably makes the simulcast watchable. It isn't just on-air either, he probably gives the producers a couple or three things they can "bring up" that Peyton might wish nobody remembered.

 

Katie Nolan is out at ESPN:



This always struck me as an odd pairing, because she was getting paid a lot of money to seemingly not do a whole lot (I also feel like Fox Sports paid her a lot of money to do nothing before she jumped to ESPN). Wasn't she one of John Skipper's last big-money hires before he left?

I guess she had signed a new contract just last year, one that she has publicly said she regrets signing.

 

Well, per that story, they had her sign a one-year extension, and then within a month fired the producer of her show that was also her co-host and her good friend. This comes a year after they did it with her *other* co-host, since the pod had three hosts at one point. I've always been more of a Katie fan than plenty of people, but it seemed like ESPN extended her a year for no reason, since they didn't really have a plan for her, outside of letting her guest on other shows. I think she's always been an enjoyable personality, and if she's not the next media superstar, well, I don't think she should be blamed for taking the bag when FS1 and ESPN wanted to give it to her. There isn't really evidence that she wasn't working hard for it, or, that she was some malcontent behind the scenes.

 

Nolan was funny and interesting over at Fox. She's referenced that's she's personally changed (for the better), and I think it's reflected in the work that may make her a fit at some other company.

 

I am not a fan, but Katie Nolan won an Emmy, which is more than can be said about a lot of the names bandied about this site.

 

Agree 1000% percent. I never took to the Mike & Mike schtick but I listened to Mike Golic on a radio call of Panthers/Texans and he was really, really solid.

 

The more I see on Nolan's time at ESPN, I see this as what I often write about here.

A company hiring a threat from a rival and then "icing" them. NBC does this all the time.

It happened to Megyn Kelly , Josh Elliott, heck, Gayle Gardner back in the day at NBC. I believe this will, eventually, happen to Maria Taylor there.

ESPN hired Katie Nolan and paid her $1 million to do... nothing. But she's no longer on FOX Sports and that's critical. ESPN seems to have this one concern with Fox Sports. Not with FS1 but in the event that someone catches fire and then can become an asset to the FOX network, that seems to draw their attention.

I don't think what Katie Nolan did was groundbreaking or even that entertaining. Younger, attractive female with loud opinions about sports has been a trend for the last 5-10 years.

She cashed in.

Good for her.

That's what you SHOULD do in TV, especially if you're a woman because there's always a younger version of you waiting to take your job for less money.

The question now comes in "what does she do next?" as her "TV glow" has dimmed from her time at ESPN. (Similar to Megyn Kelly who was a focal point of the 2016 Republican debates. Now she's on some fringe channel.) That'll probably become Nolan's fate as well unless she gets into the sports gambling TV space, which seems to have a limitless amount of cash for people who know little about sports betting.

 

I agree with a whole lot of this, but would add that TV execs seem drawn to talent, men as well as women, although mostly the latter, who thrive as hosts of lesser rated, worst time slot shows by generating buzz, then shrink from giving them the same deal at a better time. I'd never tell anyone to turn down the money, but for someone like Nolan, if they wave the bag of cash and are very vague about what you'll do to earn it, that's a big warning sign.