According to Richard Deitsch of Sports Illustrated, ESPN is expected to layoff over 100 staffers following Thanksgiving of this year. The layoffs will come after the company laid off dozens of long-time employees in the spring.
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The Sportscenter brand is expected to be one of the hardest hit by this round of layoffs. Per Deitsch, that will include on-air talents in addition to producers and behind-the-scenes employees with ESPN's longest running program.
While the holiday layoffs seem particularly harsh, Deitsch mentions that the timing of the layoffs will actually allow the effected employees to gain another year of vested stock options.
ESPN's first set of layoffs included some major names that had been with the network for years, including NFL analysts Ed Werder, John Clayton and Ron Jaworski, college football reporter Brett McMurphy, and basketball insiders Chad Ford and Marc Stein.
In total, nearly 100 employees were let go over the span of a month, and now it looks like more losses are coming as ESPN find ways to handle their declining revenue streams. ESPN has been hit hard in recent years as they continue to lose subscribers, partially as part of "cord-cutting" as customers move to streaming services. ESPN has also been hit by different types of cable packages emerging in recent years, as ESPN — often one of the most expensive parts of a normal cable package — is being left off more and more cable bundles as companies look to market more affordable options.
We wish those effected by the layoffs the best in the future.
