On Monday, we found out the shocking news of longtime SportsCenter anchor Kenny Mayne was suddenly leaving ESPN after 27 years.
He made that announcement on Twitter and stated he was a “salary cap casualty.”
The Athletic’s Richard Deitsch spoke to Mayne, who decided to come clean about the details on that pay cut. According to Mayne, ESPN wanted to cut his salary by a whopping 61%.
Via The Athletic
“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.”
“They said they understood that I would do it and, you know, it’s just business and things like that. They didn’t try to do a car deal with me. It wasn’t like, “What would you take?” It was, “Here’s your offer.” I turned it down, and we started the exit procedure.”
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Mayne said he made a counteroffer, but ESPN “never really listened to my counter.”
And just to make it crystal clear that ESPN didn’t want to keep him, Mayne said, “I don’t have some big vendetta against ESPN. It’s not, ‘Those bastards!’ Nothing like that. It’s all good. They gave me 27 years. I gave them 27 years. It doesn’t seem like they wanted me to stay very much. It almost seems like they offered me something that I would turn down, and I did.”
To make matters even worse, the Worldwide Leader in Sports would later announce that they re-signed Chris Berman to a multi-year deal as a way to rub it in Mayne’s face.
