Paul Feinbaum wasn’t one of the on-air personalities who lost his job during ESPN’s recent round of layoffs, but he was certainly affected by what happened emotionally. The longtime college football analyst and talking head called the firings “the worst day” in his ten year career at the sports network and said he’s seen all the “chirping” out there and all the “schadenfreude” on social media from the haters who may be happy about seeing someone famous let go.
Finebaum recently appeared on The Marchand And Ourand Sports Media Podcast and as part of the conversation, was asked about the layoffs. He’s a well-spoken guy who is careful with his words, but he was still pretty candid about his feelings. He said he’s not privy to CEO Bob Iger’s thinking on why certain people were chosen, but said the business can be “cruel.” Apparently he had no idea if he was going to be around by the end of the day once the layoffs started being announced. Here’s a portion of his quote…
It was the worst day in my 10 years at ESPN. I can’t explain Bob’s thinking. I think you have to trust his track record, but it doesn’t really excuse the state of mind a lot of us, if not all of us, were in. And I say as an employee, nobody knew Friday, especially those of us who are on the air, whether we would be around at the end of the day. I’ll spare you a lot of the things that have been said on Twitter and on social media because it’s a special place to work, but it can be cruel. I think because most of the names were very well known, far better than mine, there’s a chirping out there. There’s a lot of schadenfreude from hey, look what happened to him or to her. But it still hurts.
People are rarely nice on social media, but there’s a level of extra vindictiveness that’s reserved for those who are famous, wealthy or both. So, while there were a lot of comments from fans who praised the personalities who were let go, there were also tons of comments from people celebrating the perceived downfalls. For Finebaum, there was only sadness, especially related to one particular person.
The radio host and frequent panelist feels bad for everyone who got let go (reportedly around 20 people) but said he feels particularly bad for Suzy Kolber. Lead NBA Analyst Jeff Van Gundy and others like Jalen Rose were involved in sports prior to their media careers and have experienced being fired or traded in the past, but some of the people who have been on ESPN for decades don’t have that same perspective. Finebaum specifically mentioned Suzy Kolber as the person who he was most bothered by…
I was probably most touched by Suzy Kolber when I read her announcement that she was leaving. It really got to me because that’s someone who has been in front of the camera there for 30 years and who broke a lot of barriers down for women. That one really got to me.
The ESPN layoffs were part of a larger cost-cutting strategy from Disney, as the giant company tries to curb its spending to account for slowdowns in advertising, theme park conflicts in Florida and more. Ultimately, the cutbacks will see thousands of people lose their jobs, but the celebrities at ESPN who got let go are not surprisingly getting a healthy percentage of the press.
In the coming year, it’s expected that ESPN will part ways with more talking heads, especially as their contracts come to an end, but no formal plan has been announced by Bob Iger or other executives. When it happens, it'll be just the latest sign of how in-flux the entire television and radio industry is, as giants like ESPN figure out how to best compete and remain profitable during a period of transition that's seeing more and more people bail on cable.
