ESPN is investing in hot takers.
Kenny Mayne is from the old school of ESPN and that just isn’t in style anymore. If you ask someone to take a 61% pay cut, you are asking them to quit.
ESPN is being universally panned for this.
Mayne spoke to Richard Deitsch about how it all went down.
It was a significant pay cut. It was a big pay cut to do essentially the same job. It was a 14 percent reduction in time worked and a 61 percent reduction in money earned. I thought the variance was too much. I’m not asking anyone to feel sorry for me. It’s my choice to stay or not stay. It was still a good amount of money in the real world. I’m not trying to frame this as woe for me. Nothing like that. I just think I can do better elsewhere. So I told them that I feel like you’ve got a certain over-under on my worth and I’m going to go play the over. They did not seem to care that I made that choice.
I think once (executive vice president) Norby (Williamson) made the initial offer, I was pretty much gone. I knew they weren’t going to agree to what my counter was going to be, but they never even really listened to my counter.
I don’t knock others getting their money at ESPN, but they had enough money to keep Mayne and chose not to.
Flip the page for Mayne speaking more on his departure.