Scott Van Pelt Gave A Heartfelt Goodbye On ‘SportsCenter’ To Those ESPN Laid Off


Wednesday was a dark day at ESPN, as nearly 100 on-air personalities, reporters, analysts, and writers found themselves without a job due to widespread layoffs across most every sport. Among those that lost their jobs were household names that had been there for years, like Ed Werder, Jayson Stark, Jay Crawford, Trent Dilfer, and more.

Whether they’d been there 20 years or two, the layoffs hurt hundreds, with the former employees and their families all affected by the cuts. Those still at ESPN continued on through the day, but it was anything but normal in Bristol, L.A. and everywhere else the Worldwide Leader called home. Bob Ley offered some thoughts on the layoffs at the end of Outside The Lines on Wednesday.

On the midnight hour of SportsCenter, Scott Van Pelt used his “One Big Thing” segment to thank all the people departing and wish them the best.

The entire thing is well-written, and it doesn’t include any of the anger or confusion that we’ve seen from others that reacted from outside of the ESPN umbrella to the news on Wednesday. The most telling line in the entire segment from Van Pelt is the note about the firings coming “because of circumstances beyond their control.” The biggest point of outrage about the layoffs has been that ESPN dumped some incredibly high quality talent in their layoffs that were tremendous at their jobs.

However, because of the continual drop in cable subscriptions and the inability of streaming and web content — which it should be noted, ESPN has done pretty well in adapting to recently — to bring in the same revenue as those cable subscriptions, these people found themselves out of a job.

It’s a cruel reminder that the bottom line always comes first, and talent, work ethic, and quality of production sometimes isn’t even enough when it comes time for big cuts.

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