Most of the casualties of ESPN’s layoffs were known in the first 48 hours, but a few more bombshell names have trickled out since.
ESPN NBA reporters Marc Stein, Chad Ford and Henry Abbott, IndyCar lead voice Allen Bestwick and ESPN the Magazine writer Shaun Assael announced via their Twitter feeds Friday and Saturday that they have been laid off from the company.
Stein had been with ESPN since 2000, Ford since 2001 and Abbott since 2007. Bestwick joined ESPN/ABC when the company began airing NASCAR races in 2007 and stayed on after it lost rights in 2014. Assael was entering his 20th year with ESPN.
In addition, Awful Announcing reported Friday that ESPN has dropped college football analyst Mark May and Boston Globe writer Chad Finn reported on Twitter Saturday that the network has parted ways with play-by-play voice Dave O’Brien. May had been with ESPN for 16 years and O’Brien for 15.
Most of ESPN’s layoffs have been completed. The cuts have overwhelmingly targeted ESPN’s reporting ranks, with the network losing dozens of well-respected and long-tenured writers in every major sport. ESPN has parted ways with an all-star team of reporting talent — Ed Werder, Jayson Stark, Andy Katz, Stein — not to mention a number of ‘role players’ who despite relatively low profiles formed the backbone of what had been a formidable roster.
It has been a talent purge on par with the 1998 Marlins.
(News from Awful Announcing 4.26, Deadspin 4.26, Chad Finn/Twitter 4.29)
