A week after being laid off from ESPN, Karl Ravech was back on-air for the network Thursday.
Ravech, whose 33-year ESPN tenure was thought to have ended with a Dodgers-Phillies game last week, returned to the ESPN broadcast booth for Thursday’s Nationals-Braves Major League Baseball telecast. Sports Media Watch has learned that Ravech will continue working MLB games for ESPN throughout the summer. ESPN has eight more Major League Baseball dates and ten more windows this season.
He will also work ESPN’s coverage of the Little League World Series, on which he has been the lead voice since 2011.
There is no indication that the reporting on Ravech being laid off, which Andrew Marchand of The Athletic broke last Tuesday morning, was inaccurate. (Per Marchand, ESPN gave Ravech the option to continue working because his layoff occurred in-season, and he accepted.)
ESPN has rehired staffers it laid off, including MLB analyst Doug Glanville — who was in-studio on the network Thursday — NFL reporter Ed Werder and play-by-play voice Dave O’Brien, but there is little precedent for laid off talent continuing to appear on-air. Allen Bestwick and Dr. Jerry Punch continued to work IndyCar races for ABC after being laid off from ESPN in 2017.
There is plenty of precedent for talent continuing to work for ESPN after agreeing to part ways, including Mike Tirico after taking a role with NBC Sports in 2016.
ESPN has been roundly criticized for laying off the long-tenured Ravech, particularly as he found out about the move when reached by phone by Marchand. Paired with the mid-show layoff of ESPN NFL analyst Ryan Clark, the move left ESPN facing scrutiny — including from ex-anchors Dan Patrick and Linda Cohn — over the treatment of its employees.
While the latest round of layoffs primarily affected ESPN’s newly-acquired NFL Network — including reporter Tom Pelissero — Ravech was one of a handful of ESPN talent among the cuts. That list also included the aforementioned Clark, longtime “SportsCenter” anchor David Lloyd and NFL injury analyst Stephania Bell.
