Curious How Much ESPN Executives Make? We Have Pay-Grade Charts

Want to know what a vice president of production makes at ESPN? We can give you a pretty good idea. An ESPN source sent us the company's pay-grade charts.

These charts cover the salaries of 1,748 people at ESPN, including the majority of its executives. Pay ranges are assigned by "grade level." A senior exec at ESPN? That person is making anywhere between $244,350 and $407,250.

The documents do not include information for on-air talent and contract workers (if anyone wants to pass those along, feel free). The charts date back to 2006ish, but our source said that the salary ranges haven't changed much since.

The documents, produced by ESPN's HR department, come with stern warnings: "For Managers Only—Not For Distribution. For Internal Use—Company Confidential." They weren't floating around freely on the company intranet or anything. In fact, HR issued a talking point to managers, to be deployed if nosy employees ever requested to see company pay grades: "At this time we are providing the salary information related to your position only."

First up, executives. "Grades E11 and E12 are not shown," says the document, which means then-ESPN president George Bodenheimer is not included here. But our source tells us that this chart includes the vast majority of execs. A roadmap: The "2Q," "3Q," and "4Q" down below refer to the second, third, and fourth quartiles of each pay grade. Here's the chart (click to enlarge):

Next, the grade charts for the worker bees. Presumably, some of these levels and job titles have changed but our source gave us a rough key to navigating the documents. (Update: We adjusted this with slightly more precise information from our source.) We can't say for sure, but PAs are probably toiling somewhere between Levels 22 and 25.

Level 11 = VPLevel 12 = DirectorLevel 13 = Associate Director (formerly Manager)Level 14 = Manager (formerly Supervisor)

Level 15 = Higher level StaffLevel 16 = Higher level StaffLevel 17 = Higher level StaffLevel 18 = Mid level StaffLevel 19 = Mid level StaffLevel 20 = Mid level StaffLevel 21 = Low level StaffLevel 22 = Low level StaffLevel 23 = Low level StaffLevel 24 = Entry level StaffLevel 25 = Entry level Staff

Here's the pay-grade chart for employees in Bristol and a few regional offices (click to enlarge):

And here are more regional offices:

What follows is the rest of the HR document that our source sent us. Know more about ESPN and salaries? Have a chart for on-air talent? Feel free to email me.