Dan Le Batard leaves ESPN

Dan Le Batard, the flamethrower of sports television and radio shows, will be leaving ESPN in January, the company said Thursday.

“It was mutually agreed that it was better for both sides to seize new opportunities, and we worked closely together to make this possible,” said Norby Williamson, an executive at ESPN, in a statement.

The Batard, 51, wrote for ESPN or appeared on its shows for two decades, but became a mainstay of the network in 2011. That’s when his TV show – initially titled ‘Dan Le Batard Is Highly questionable ”- debuted on ESPN2. It then switched to flagship channel ESPN, and the company also aired the South Florida-based Le Batard radio show across the country on ESPN Radio.

But Le Batard, the son of Cuban exiles who insists on speaking freely and takes immense pride in his independence, has repeatedly clashed with his bosses.

The final showdown came in November, following the dismissal of 300 employees by ESPN, including Chris Cote, producer of the radio show Le Batard. Le Batard rehired Cote, paying the producer’s salary out of pocket, and told the air that the layoff was “the biggest disrespect of my professional career, that I had no notice, no collaboration.

The dismissal follows a number of decisions that diminished Le Batard’s reach. The TV simulcast of his radio show was recently moved from cable channel ESPNews to the ESPN + streaming platform, which has tens of millions of subscribers less. ESPN Radio also cut the broadcast hours for the Le Batard radio show from three per day to two.

The relationship between Le Batard and ESPN has always been difficult. He was known for his gags that tested the humor of his bosses: the network suspended him for two days in 2014 after ordering billboards, and also planned to hire a plane with a banner, to mock him of LeBron James’ decision to leave the Miami Heat and return. to the Cleveland Cavaliers.

More serious conflict erupted in the summer of 2019. Le Batard publicly criticized ESPN’s lukewarm approach to political coverage after President Trump tweeted that four Democratic women of color in Congress should ‘return’ to ” the crime-infested places where they came from ”- comments that even members of Trump’s party condemned as racist.

Le Batard said on his radio show that “we here at ESPN don’t have the guts for the fight.”

“We’re not talking about what’s going on unless there’s some kind of weak, loose sporting angle that we can go through,” he added. Subsequently, he was summoned to New York for a meeting with ESPN President Jimmy Pitaro.

Since being appointed president in early 2018, Pitaro has sought to steer the network away from comments that may be deemed political. He said survey data shows fans don’t want to hear political talks on ESPN and told employees to discuss politics only through the lens of sports.

The strategy helped quell some of the controversy that surrounded ESPN in 2017, when “SportsCenter” host Jemele Hill called the president a white supremacist. But that started to look less viable this summer, after the murder of George Floyd in custody in Minneapolis prompted subjects of racism and police brutality to dominate the sports landscape. As The New York Times reported in July, some employees said they had been told to reduce their coverage of racial issues in sports.

“It was never explicit, it was just kind of we reading the play,” Elle Duncan, a SportsCenter presenter, said in a Times article.

The departure of The Batard from ESPN is somewhat parallel to the experiences of Bill Simmons, who also carved his own empire within the network, but ultimately parted ways with the company after upset his bosses once too often and them. two parties could not reach an agreement during the renegotiation. his contract.

Yet Le Batard seemed to recognize that he benefited considerably from his ties to the network.

“One of the afflictions that come with the ego is the idea that you are responsible for your success and that ESPN is not,” he said on radio in 2016, after “Any Given Wednesday “- Simmons’ post-ESPN TV show on HBO – has been canceled. “It’s another reminder, ‘Don’t quit ESPN, man. ESPN is a monster platform that is responsible for all of our success. ”

Those comments, however, came before John Skipper, who had a strong relationship with Le Batard, resigned as president of ESPN and before Simmons sold The Ringer, his website and podcast network, to Spotify. for $ 200 million.

It’s unclear what Le Batard might do next, but in the statement announcing his departure he said in his typically absurd manner that he was not finished.

“To our loyal army of concerned fans, and to all who have walked and played an instrument in our Marching Band to Nowhere, please know that this is a very exciting time for us, not sad,” said Le Batard. “And that you’ll hear our laughs again soon enough.”