Longtime “SportsCenter” anchor Linda Cohn is retiring from ESPN a week from Tuesday, ESPN announced Monday, ending a 34-year tenure that began in 1992.
Cohn, who has anchored more editions of “SportsCenter” than any other host, will appear on the show a final time on Friday as a guest during the 6, 10 and 11 PM ET editions. Ben Koo of Awful Announcing was first to report the news, and wrote that ESPN and Cohn could not agree on a new role ahead of the expiration of her contract.
The announcement comes about a year after ESPN shut down the Los Angeles-based “SportsCenter” she regularly hosted, part of a broader scaling back of operations at its L.A. production center.
It had not been clear what if any role Cohn would take with ESPN after the L.A. show was shuttered. The network as of last year had been offering L.A.-based employees the option to relocate back to its Bristol, Conn., headquarters or to take a severance package. The primary L.A.-based host, Stan Verrett, left ESPN shortly after and remains a sports media host in the area.
In a statement released through ESPN, Cohn said that she is “grateful for every moment” at ESPN but is “inspired and energized by the opportunities that lie ahead,” adding that her “story is still being written.”
Cohn is just the latest long-tenured “SportsCenter” anchor to leave the program in recent years, following the aforementioned Verrett, fellow L.A. host Neil Everett, John Anderson and Kenny Mayne.
She was recently a guest on the Rich Eisen podcast “This Was SportsCenter,” in which Eisen — now an ESPN employee again after its parent company Disney acquired NFL Network — interviews his colleagues about their experiences on the show.
With her time on “SportsCenter” coinciding with the show’s 1990s heyday, Cohn was as well-known as any host in the nearly 50-year history of the program and a key member of a host rotation that included some of the biggest names in the history of ESPN, most — if not all — of whom she worked with at one time or another.
In addition to her role as a “SportsCenter” anchor, Cohn also contributed to the network’s NHL and WNBA coverage at various points, including a stint as a WNBA play-by-play voice.
