SportsCenter anchor Kenny Mayne is leaving ESPN, while Chris Berman is sticking around for a few more years. Plus: ESPN continues to staff up its NHL coverage and more.
SportsCenter’s Kenny Mayne leaving ESPN May 24
ESPN SportsCenter anchor Kenny Mayne said Monday that he is leaving the company, with his final day set for May 24. Mayne joined ESPN officially in 1994 after spending the previous four years as a freelance reporter and field producer. He held many roles during his three-decade tenure, regularly anchoring the 11 PM ET SportsCenter from 1997-2008 and again since 2017.
He also served as a regular contributor on ESPN’s Sunday NFL Countdown, hosted the network’s trivia series 2-Minute Drill, starred in a fictionalized ESPN.com series about his life, and once in 2003 covered four different events across North America on the same day — the NFL Draft in New York, a Celtics playoff game in Boston, a Sunday Night Baseball game in Anaheim and a Canucks playoff game in Vancouver. [Kenny Mayne/Twitter 5.10 a, b]
ESPN extends Berman
ESPN announced Monday that it has reached a multi-year contract extension with NFL Primetime host Chris Berman. Berman will continue in his current limited roles, hosting NFL Primetime all-season long on ESPN+ and special postseason editions of the show on ESPN following the NFL’s conference championship games and Super Bowl. [ESPN PR 5.10]
ESPN bringing back Ferraro, adding Boucher, for NHL
Former ESPN NHL analyst Ray Ferraro is returning to the network and as a game analyst, the New York Post and The Athletic reported Monday. Per the Post Ferraro could be the network’s top game analyst. He served as a studio analyst for ESPN from 2002-04 and worked for NBC from 2006-07 before spending much of the last decade-plus on TSN in Canada.
The Post and Athletic also reported that ESPN will be hiring NBC analyst Brian Boucher. Per the former, Steve Levy and Sean McDonough are viewed as the top candidates for the lead play-by-play position.
In other NHL analyst news, the Post reported over the weekend that ESPN is out of the running for the services of “The Great One” Wayne Gretzky, who is being recruited to Turner by NBA analyst Charles Barkley. [NYP 5.7, 5.10; The Athletic 5.10]
Plus: Jimmie, Sonnen, Stewart
IndyCar driver Jimmie Johnson will serve as an analyst on NBC’s scheduled Indianapolis 500 coverage this year, working alongside Mike Tirico and Danica Patrick, it was announced last week. … ESPN said last week that it has reached a multi-year contract extension with MMA analyst Chael Sonnen, who will continue in his current roles on its UFC coverage and on the podcast “Ariel and the Bad Guy” with Ariel Helwani. … ESPN also announced last week that it has hired handicapper Kelly Stewart as a sports betting analyst for Daily Wager and SportsCenter. [NBC Sports PR 5.4, ESPN PR 5.6 a, b]
