Jeff Van Gundy being fired by ESPN was one of the more shocking layoffs by the Worldwide Leader in Sports, but did that decision come from a higher-up?
ESPN employee Chris “Mad Dog” Russo suggested that NBA commissioner Adam Silver is responsible for Jeff Van Gundy losing his job. Just watching any game that the calls, you would know how critical Gundy was towards the league and certain things that made it a terrible product.
Russo unleashed an insane rant that Jeff Van Gundy being let go by The Worldwide Leader after 17 years was the result of Silver wanting him off the air for good.
“Let me put it this way, I can’t fathom the idea that ESPN in these layoffs…would fire Jeff Van Gundy,” Russo said on his Sirius XM podcast Mad Dog’s Daily Bite on Tuesday. “You’re not going to convince me that ESPN (and Disney boss Bob Iger) woke up in the last two weeks, looked at the budget sheet, and said, ‘We gotta fire Van Gundy because we gotta save some money.’”
Russo then added that Marc Jackson should’ve been fired instead.
“Fire the both of them,” he continued. “Save real money, bring one guy in, and pay him half. If you really wanted to go out there and save money with your NBA crew, which you could’ve done is fired the both of them and just hired Doc Rivers and paid him half of what those two were making. You could’ve saved a fortune and done a two-man booth. You could’ve easily have done that.”
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“That leads me to the conclusion that someone in the league office must’ve told ESPN, ‘I want Van Gundy out.’ We all know he’s biting. We all know he gets on the officials. We all know he doesn’t hold back with his NBA opinions. He tells you what he thinks, which is what a great broadcaster is supposed to do anyways,” Russo continued. “What is going on right now in the negotiation scenario? ESPN and NBC and TNT, what are they doing? They’re all negotiating with [commsioner Adam] Silver and the NBA.”
ESPN’s parent company, Disney, previously had three rounds of layoffs with the goal of eliminating 7,000 jobs, which were ordered by the company’s CEO, Bob Iger.
ESPN laid off some of its biggest stars, including Jeff Van Gundy, Max Kellerman, Keyshawn Johnson, Suzy Kolber, and Jalen Rose, in a purge that was expected to result in around 20 on-air personalities being let go as the network hopes to save tens of millions of dollars.
Van Gundy is considered one of the best NBA TV game analysts ever, so his firing was especially hard.
The hope is by cutting those making in excess of seven figures per year, ESPN would be able to save more behind-the-scenes people.
