One of the longest-tenured and most respected broadcasters at ESPN has died.
ESPN host John Saunders has died at 61, the network announced Wednesday. No immediate cause was given. Saunders was in his 30th year with ESPN/ABC, having served as host of The Sports Reporters since the death of Dick Schaap in 2001 and ABC’s lead college football studio host since 1992.
In addition to the longtime roles mentioned above, Saunders was an NBA play-by-play voice and studio host for ESPN from 2002-06. ESPN has now lost Saunders, Stuart Scott and Jim Durham, each of whom played crucial roles in its NBA coverage in the 2000s. Saunders was also ESPN’s lead NHL studio host from 1993-04, hosting the Stanley Cup Final, and called sporting events ranging from college basketball to the WNBA and NBA D-League.
Saunders’ sudden passing represents one of the bigger blows in the history of ESPN, coming less than two years after the death of Scott.
Prior to joining ESPN in 1986, Saunders was a local sports reporter for WMAR in Baltimore and, previous to that, several Canadian networks. During his ESPN tenure, he moonlighted as a Toronto Raptors voice for Canadian networks CITY-TV and CKVR.
It is hard to overstate how much of an impact Saunders’ loss will have on ESPN, particularly on The Sports Reporters — which thanks to Saunders was able to weather the loss of another giant, Schaap. “One of the things that stood out to me when I watched this show,” Saunders said during the first Sports Reporters after Schaap’s death, “was the class of this gentleman.” Surely, the same will be said about Saunders on this Sunday’s edition.
