4/13/2020 by Jeremy Barr for The Hollywood Reporter
“These are challenging times and we are all in this together,” the network said Monday.
Amid the economic fallout to the coronavirus pandemic, ESPN is asking 100 of the network’s highest-paid commentators to take a temporary pay cut, it confirmed Monday.
“We are asking about 100 of our commentators to join with our executives and take a temporary salary reduction,” the company said in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter. “These are challenging times and we are all in this together.”
The commentators will be asked to take 15 percent pay cuts for three months.
The goal of the request is to help deter further furloughs at this time and to protect the compensation of lower-paid employees,
ESPN’s executives took pay cuts earlier this month, corresponding to their level of seniority at the network.
ESPN is working to adapt to a sports-free world and to keep its channel programmed with fresh content.
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All sports stations have had a huge challenge with no sports to report and you have to feel embarrassed for some of the sports jocks when they try to talk about non sports news items. On the TV scene though I really think the Canadian stations have put forward a pass poor effort at entertaining sports fans while they are stuck at home. Seems everytime I look its either curling, old Blue Jays games, old Raptors games and sports hosts bloviating about no sports being played. ESPN on the other hand seem to actually have put together a wide selection of past events where it appears to be a lot more entertaining than their Canadian counterparts.