The Sports World Reacted With Sadness And Confusion To ESPN’s Layoffs


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Sadly, the biggest story in sports on Wednesday wasn’t the NBA playoffs or the upcoming NFL Draft. Instead, the sports world watched as nearly 100 on-air personalities, writers, reporters, radio hosts, and more announced that they were being let go by ESPN.

ESPN, in need of cutting costs as their number of cable subscribers continues to fall, turned to their on-air and writing talent budget for money and gave the call to numerous personalities across all sports. It was a disheartening day for the sports media industry, watching long-time staples of the ESPN airwaves and young, up-and-coming reporters and stars in the business learn that they were now jobless. The overwhelming sentiment from those leaving was of graciousness for the opportunity, but disappointment to learn that they were not being kept, which is more than understandable.

While the former employees all took the high road publicly, other members of the sports media (some former ESPNers themselves) and fans of ESPN in general took to Twitter to voice their frustration with the massive cuts. These were people they loved to read, watch, or listen to on a regular basis and now they were without a job not because of personal fault or an inability to excel at their job, but because the bottom line dictated that people had to go.

A number of high profile staffers at ESPN were let go, including baseball writer and reporter Jayson Stark, who has long been a staple on ESPN. His former colleague Peter Gammons took to Twitter to support Stark and also make his disappointment in the cuts known.

As Gammons eluded to, Baseball Tonight will reportedly be one of the shows most affected by the layoffs and could see significant restructuring moving forward.

There were plenty more that sent their well wishes to the departing ESPN staff members, as well as those that let the company know that they had let go of people that were beloved.