I admit, this isn’t the most timeliest of takes, given that I was writing my second book at the time, but ESPN’s layoffs prove my original point: pundits provide almost no value whatsoever. I’ll break down the layoffs in further detail while I further and aggressively shove my point down your throat. So, all of the losers who were picked last in high school, make sure to sharpen your pitchforks as I revel in the shedding of deadweight.
As mentioned in previous articles, there is no accuracy metric for being a pundit. There is no punishment for being wrong so frequently, and these pundits are frequently wrong. Luckily, that isn’t what they were judged on; they were judged solely on their ability to garner views. These losers had one job, to gather views, and they were tangentially attached to a product that has a large and passionate in-built audience. Yet, these perennial underachievers still couldn’t fulfill that one simplistic job requirement. Therefore, they deserved to lose their cushy gigs.
ESPN shed its payroll of millions of dollars’ worth of non-producing liabilities, yet the programs still air. This further bolsters the case that these spicy personalities in their expensive suites and their uninformed opinions are truly just net-detractors from ESPN, save for only that absolute spiciest. Since the programs still air, it isn’t out-of-line to say that the average boom mic operator or cameraman is far more valuable to Bob Iger’s operation than Jeff van Gundy ever was. Iger is no fool, he knows that there is a plethora of coaches with zero rings capable of spouting back in my day stories of their losing ways, yet the labor market for hiring cameramen is tough. Ease of replicability is not a quality you’d want your job to have.
Most of the names that were axed were those who had never played or coached their sport past high school. OF the former athletes who remained, they weren’t simply spicy enough or they simply said nothing of value that warranted a massive post-playing paycheck. Inevitably, some will say that I’m being unfair to the ejected pundits for their lack of spiciness, claiming that being perpetually and cartoonishly outraged like Stephen A. Smith is unrealistic. However, this is the TikTok generation (much to my dismay) and the audience needs a constant one-upmanship in order to stay engaged. Given how the likes of Skip Bayless and Stephen A. Smith are revered in the pundit world, these gym class rejects and retired athletes knew the level of spice the “job” (I’m being very loose with that term) required. If this wasn’t a monster of their own creation, then it is at least a monster they literally made a deal with. In this Get Views or Get Fired world we now live in, it’s pretty obvious that the national hot dog eating contest is more valuable to ESPN than Jalen Rose.
This should scare current athletes straight in a way; they cannot rely on a career in broadcasting after they are done playing. Oh well, maybe they should’ve gone to class when they were playing college ball. Others will accuse me of being the pot calling the kettle black, except that argument breaks down since my unemployment was voluntary and theirs wasn’t.
However, the aspiring pundit (you should aim a little higher in life) still has some hope, there was a very significant subset of pundits who survived the budgetary ax of Bob Iger. These are pundits who actually have something important and nuanced to say. Pat McAfee is one such example, as he not only survived the ESPN layoffs, but he got a sweet new deal to boot. McAfee is neither spicy nor remedial. Pundits on other networks have been recognized for positively contributing to the viewer experience by actually saying something valuable; Kenny Smith from TNT and Tony Romo from CBS are two such examples.
Let this be a paradigm shift to our nation’s pundits; Prioritize saying something useful. If you can’t do that, say something spicy. If you can’t do either, file for unemployment.
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