john-skipper Page 2 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
ESPN Gets Defensive About Ratings Drop
Earlier this week we told you about ESPN's recent ratings woes. The numbers dropped significantly in the second quarter this year. They were down in the first quarter, too, and they were flat last year. Now that the news is getting around, ESPN PR—which usually projects an air of lordly remove in t...
New ESPN Ombud Finds Breezy Forgetfulness Over Broussard Fracas
Robert Lipsyte's first column as ESPN's ombudsman dissected the squirmworthy Chris Broussard-LZ Granderson showdown when Jason Collins came out. It's just as ombudsy as you like it, 3,300 words of media-ethics spinach. Lipsyte swings his prose like a lead pipe when he sees a deserving target; his re...
"So," ESPN Prez John Skipper Says, "We Eliminated A Bunch Of Jobs"
ESPN has been very quiet about the hundreds of workers they've sent packing over the past month. There wasn't any word circulating about the job cuts until the morning they came, and ESPN president John Skipper has kept communication about the job cuts to the bare minimum. ...
Keith Olbermann Will Host Turner's MLB Playoff Coverage
Well, Keith Olbermann has a job again. After months of showing up at ballparks, Olbermann is going to be the studio host for Turner's coverage of the MLB playoffs this October. The Hollywood Reporter reports he'll be on with Dennis Eckersley and maybe one other studio guy (Jim Miller broke the Olber...
ESPN President's Memo: Support The Troops; Also, We're Firing People
Below is a memo from ESPN president John Skipper, sent companywide just before the Memorial Day weekend and forwarded to us by a Bristol tipster. "This is the only communication we've received from upper management this week that mentions the layoffs," our tipster writes. Happy Memorial Day!...
ESPN Chief: We Should Have Been "More Careful With Chris Broussard"
At the network's upfront today, ESPN president John Skipper acknowledged the gross stupidity of Chris Broussard's comments on Jason Collins's coming-out day, when the NBA reporter declared gayness an abomination unto the Lord. (No, really.) ESPN shouldn't have given Broussard that platform, Skipper...
ESPN Suspends Bill Simmons From Twitter After <em>First Take</em> Criticism
Apparently Bill Simmons is not beyond reproach....
Bill Simmons Calls The Bayless-Sherman <em>First Take</em> Meltdown "Awful And Embarrassing"
It's been a while, but Bill Simmons has finally weighed in on something ESPN. Naturally, it's about the show that sucks up the most oxygen in Bristol, First Take. ...
Rob Parker's "Cornball Brother" Comment Is Still A Big Headache For ESPN
Well, actually, the Rob Parker cornball comment became a big headache for the CEO of ESPN's parent company, Disney. At a Disney shareholders meeting yesterday, one guy representing a conservative group, the National Center for Public Policy Research, used Parker's comment to demonstrate that ESPN is...
Keith Olbermann Wants To Work At ESPN Again; ESPN Responds By Swinging Its Dick Around
Keith Olbermann very badly wants to work for ESPN again. And today's New York Times story—written by Those Guys Have All the Fun co-author Jim Miller, who along with Richard Sandomir is working on a feature about ESPN for the paper—suggests that Olbermann is going to have a hell of a hard time findi...
ESPN Suspends Rob Parker After "Cornball Brother" Remarks, Promises "Full Review"
ESPN execs are not sitting on their hands on this one. A day after Rob Parker's "is he a brother or is he a cornball brother" comments about Robert Griffin III, ESPN said that Parker is suspended indefinitely....
ESPN Finally Disavows Its Tebow Coverage: "We Didn't Handle That Very Well"
The New York Jets have three games left to play and despite an unexpected itchy eruption of theoretically possible playoff chances—one game behind whahuh?—they're not a draw going down the stretch. The Chargers-Jets Sunday game on Dec. 23 gets the distinction of being the only game this year that NB...
Former ESPN VP's "I Didn't Masturbate In Front Of Erin Andrews" Lawsuit Causes Panic In Bristol And L.A.
LOS ANGELES—On Nov. 5, ESPN Senior VP Joan Lynch woke up in her home to find a front tire of her vehicle slashed. This is notable for two reasons. The first is that Lynch lives in the Pacific Palisades, which is not the sort of neighborhood where one gets one's tires slashed. The Palisades is west o...
The Decision About LeBron's <em>Decision</em> Was An Orgy Of Self-Interest, With Jim Gray On Top
There's a brief section about The Decision in Those Guys Have All the Fun, and if the details aren't exactly fresh, the takeaway is somewhat new: Everyone involved was using everyone else for their own ends to produce what amounted to a massive orgy that they all came to regret the next day. And LeB...
Jamboroo, Week 6: John Skipper's Latest Leaked ESPN NFL Coverage Memo
Big Daddy Drew's Thursday Afternoon NFL Dick Joke Jamboroo previews the upcoming weekend of the NFL every, well, every Thursday afternoon....
Deadspin HOF Nominee: ESPN Memo
It's impossible to overstate the joy in our hearts when the ESPN Internal Complaint Memo showed up in our email box. We had always suspected that ESPN was a depressing, Brazil-esque bureaucracy. But we had no idea how bad it was....
New MNF Booth Just Full Of Giggles!
Newsday's Neil Best documents a happening that seems specifically designed to make Joe Theismann pound his face repeatedly against a wall: a practice session with the new "Monday Night Football" crew. They're having so much fun!...
Your Baby Will Cough And You Will Like It
We know the big ESPN interoffice complaint memorandum we posted earlier this week was enormous and unwieldy, but seriously, folks: It's an absolute treasure trove of gorgeous goodness. So, for the rest of the week, we'll be highlighting particularly hilarious and illustrative segments from the memo....
ESPN Employees Need Their Cash NOW
We know the big ESPN interoffice complaint memorandum we posted yesterday was enormous and unwieldy, but seriously, folks: It's an absolute treasure trove of gorgeous goodness. So, for the rest of the week, we'll be highlighting two particularly hilarious and illustrative segments from the memo each...
A Tree Grows In Bristol
We know the big ESPN interoffice complaint memorandum we posted on Tuesday was enormous and unwieldy, but seriously, folks: It's an absolute treasure trove of gorgeous goodness. So, for the rest of the week, we'll be highlighting two particularly hilarious and illustrative segments from the memo eac...