ESPN Restructure / Discussion

ESPN apparently is making a big push for Woj.

That's help their image a lot right now because their purge is a bad look.

 

If I'm Woj, I don't go. He has his own little empire at Yahoo with a big following. Why jump on a sinking ship?

 

Interesting. I think he's plugged in with GMs / coaches, whereas, the NBA expert at ESPN is Stephen A and he's plugged in with the players. Get Stephen A to calm down and the two of them can be the go-to source for all NBA related material.

 

they already locked him up. That news broke in Feb of this year I thought.

Some people on twitter this weekend were even joking that all these cuts were to clear the cap space for Wojo.

 

I can't remember where I saw it in an article but he's not happy with some of the behind the scene stuff that has gone on at Yahoo. So he staying with them until his contract is up and then will be with ESPN.

 

That's a good point. They also fired Curt Schilling for re-tweeting something about the bathrooms in North Carolina. yet I see other employees give their political / social opinions daily. For example: Stephen A said it was racist for Brock Osweiler to not go to the White House after the Broncos won the SB. Brock said he didn't feel he should be there because, A, he wasn't a starter and B, he was with a new team now and needed to practice with them instead of taking time off for the WH visit. Whether it was racist or not is up for anyone's opinion, but Stephen A was silent when several black players boycotted the Trump invitation (Patriots) and the Cubs moving up their WH visit to see Obama instead of Trump (I give them a half-pass because Obama is from Chicago, but he's not a Cubs fan. He likes the White Sox). Anyway, point is, Stephen A was silent, but went straight to the race card when Brock didn't go and not a word from ESPN. Basically, if you are Democrat / liberal, you can say whatever you want. If you're Republican / Conservative, you better shut up if you wanna keep your job. And ESPN wonders why half the country doesn't wanna watch them.

Also, their love affair with LeBron has made them unwatchable to me. I tune in to First Take if I know someone I like is on, but otherwise, I can find everything I need on-line or another network.

 

Stephen A Smith might be the most racist person I've ever seen on a major TV station. He pulls the race card any chance he can. He called the Bucs racist for firing Lovie Smith...after Smith went 8-24. He questioned why Romo got to be a Maverick for a day and wondered if Romo was black if he still would have gotten that treatment. He called Brady racist for not visiting the White House when Obama was president. I could go on and on with examples from that bee hive of hate.

I actually give the Cubs a pass on their trip. Obama is a huge sports fan and he's from Chicago. Being a White Sox fan, you could even make the case that the Cubs may have been trying to rub it in a bit. And Obama and Kobe had my favorite White House athlete moment ever when Obama told Kobe he thinks Derick Rose has his number and Kobe responded with, "Tell him to give me a call. I'll pick up on the 5th ring." It was obviously staged, but great.

 

I had never heard about this. That's awesome.

 

I haven't really noticed these firings in any of the shows I actually watch or listen to except for Russillo and Kanell. I really liked Danny Kanell, thought he was funny, seemed like a good dude, show isn't as good with him gone, they just use random SportsCenter anchors in his place.

 

Here is something interesting about all the ESPN layoffs:

"ESPN agreed to pay out full contracts, which in some cases lasted more than five years. Several reporters offered to continue working through their contracts without incurring expenses, but they were told they couldn’t.

Talent that had contracts were told that they were still employees of ESPN on payroll, but they no longer worked for the company. Many have non-compete clauses in their deals, which means they can’t report their beats, even on social media, until their contracts end or they are released. In order to get around the non-compete clauses, they would have to report on entirely different beats than the ones they spent years developing at ESPN."

ESPN says that the layoffs were a cost-cutting move but why pay people to sit home, it’s difficult to make sense out of cutting people who in some cases have a lot of time left on their contract and being willing to pay them to do nothing.

It makes so sense at all.

 

Creative Destruction.

 

Wow, that is lame as hell. I imagine on the same page as that rule is the “Do not write any negative articles about LeBron” rule, as well as “Heavily cover all Massachusetts and NY teams even when they are not good.” clause.