So two more major names are hopping the Amtrak and exiting Bristol.
On Monday, John Ourand of Sports Business Periodical broke the news that Mike Tirico will be leaving ESPN. The longtime play-by-play announcer for NBA, golf, and other events as well as the lead announcer for Monday Night Football will be taking his talents to NBC once his contract ends this summer.
Twenty-four hours later, the worldwide leader announced that Skip Bayless, the spearhead voice of the highly successful debate franchise First Take, will be departing the Bristol campus at the end of the NBA Finals in June.
His contract expires in August. Bayless is expected to join the Fox Sports family and reunite with former ESPN Executive Producer and current president of Fox Sports Jamie Horowitz.
The dual departure marks the continuing of a disturbing trend at the industry leader in sports media:
Over the past year, Colin Cowherd traded in Connecticut winters for sunny Southern California summers and a Fox Sports contract that will pay him six million dollars a year over the next four years.
After the failed initial launch of the race- and sports-centric The Undefeated, Jason Whitlock parted ways with ESPN, and he returned to Fox Sports. The network also decided not to renew the contract of Keith Olbermann.
ESPN’s very public discourse with Bill Simmons came to a head when the two parties decided to move on. Simmons has since parlayed his newfound freedom into a multiplatform deal with HBO.
That makes four major names gone from the network in a year. Five if you include baseball analyst Curt Schilling’s strikeout after multiple incidents of his outspokenness and subsequent dismissal by the network.
Now with Bayless and Tirico taking their final laps around campus, the industry has to wonder if the talent bloodletting will leave ESPN anemic.
The reality of economics and the changing schematics of the cable industry have attributed to ESPN losing 7 million subscribers over the last 2 years. As paying viewers abandon the traditional cable and satellite model for the more a la carte one led by Netflix and Hulu, live content remains a valuable commodity. Rights fees for that content have not gone down.
In late 2015, ESPN’s cost cutting initiative led to the elimination of 300 positions, mainly in production. With Simmons no longer under contract, the network also turned off the lights at Grantland, the influential sports and pop culture site. The decision to end Grantland can be viewed as both a cost-saving and synergy cleansing as the site’s focus began to skew away from sports – its parent company’s focus.
As ESPN tightens its collective belt and keeps its eye on trimming the budget, the competition is circling available talent with intriguing opportunities both creatively and financially. According to Richard Deitsch of Sports Illustrated, Skip Bayless is slated to make $5.5 million per year for four years.
Good source at ESPN tells me Bayless is looking at $5 million or so per year with Fox. (Related: Enjoy your day.)
— Richard Deitsch (@richarddeitsch) April 26, 2016
That amount does not include the $4 million dollar signing bonus.
By comparison, Golden State Warrior head coach Steve Kerr is in the second year of a 5-year contract that pays him $5 million per year. Cowherd is reportedly making close to $6 million at Fox as well.
The most common denominator with both signings is of course Horowitz.
As Horowitz positions Fox Sports and its national outlet FS1 as the new home of sports opinion, he has not been shy about his plan to go after the high profile talent of his former employer. Nabbing Cowherd has been a major achievement during Horowitz’s Fox Sports reign. Reeling in the voice of sports “hot takes” in Bayless could be another signature moment as long as the ratings follow.
With this latest round of big name departures, many question how ESPN will react to the loss of two signature voices.
Place your bet on business as usual.
ESPN prides itself on being an incubator of journalistic and on air talent. The depth they have resembles that of a perennial national championship contender.
Take for example the aftermath of The Herd with Colin Cowherd on ESPN Radio. After Cowherd’s last days at the company were cut short due to his controversial comments about Dominican baseball players, the network filled his former morning slot (10AM to 1PM EST) with diverse talent like Max Kellerman and Marcellus Wiley (the host of Max & Marcellus on ESPN LA 710), Michelle Beadle and Ben Lyons (ESPN LA), and Tom Waddle and Marc Silverman (Waddle & Silvy on ESPN Chicago 1000).
ESPN settled on Dan Le Batard, the host of his own afternoon radio show on ESPN Radio and the host of Highly Questionable on ESPN, as Cowherd’s permanent replacement. The move to the mid-morning shift for the Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz now left a vacancy in the afternoon (4PM to 7PM) slot. That slot was in turn filled when Bomani Jones (Highly Questionable, Around the Horn) moved his nightly radio show The Right Time with Bomani Jones into the afternoon.
Depth indeed.
That depth is nothing new at ESPN. It’s a place where you can build your brand and move on to high profile gigs. Dan Patrick. Robin Roberts. Greg Gumbel. Rich Eisen. Erin Andrews. Charley Steiner – most of the viewing public got to know each of these names from their initial work in Bristol.
Each also used their developing name and brand recognition to land other jobs. Eisen moved to the NFL Network, Gumbel to CBS Sports, and Roberts to Good Morning America, for example. ESPN helped provide the springboard to those opportunities.
Tirico started construction on his national brand when he started with the network back in 1991. Covering everything from college football and basketball, the NBA, and golf, Tirico’s profile reached its apex when he became the voice of an institution with Monday Night Football.
Meanwhile, Bayless was an award winning veteran of print media with stints at the Los Angeles Times, Dallas Morning Herald, and Chicago Tribune. He started with ESPN as a full timer as part of the “1st and Ten” segment of ESPN2’s morning fare Cold Pizza, the precursor of future ratings giant First Take.
Both built their brands at the worldwide leader and have now earned the right to move on to greener pastures. That’s the way it has always been in Mickey’s Clubhouse.
