This week is probably not among the “Top 10” in ESPN history. On Monday, the final SportsCenter in Los Angeles signed off, and on Friday, long-running afternoon debate show Around the Horn will see host Tony Reali crumple his stat sheet, the last page in his daily research packet that lists the career win total of the day’s panelists (and is later either recycled or signed and sent to a fan), for one final paper toss. We’re rooting for Reali to hit the camera lens one last time.
With no more SportsCenter in L.A., anchor Stan Verrett’s ESPN contract has not been renewed and he is leaving the company after this summer following a 25-year tenure, a source with knowledge tells The Hollywood Reporter. Linda Cohn’s future work with ESPN is TBD, though she remains under contract. Cohn joined both the company and the show’s anchor desk in 1992. Since then, she has (by far) anchored the most SportsCenter episodes in history; by 2016, ESPN was already celebrating her 5,000th SportsCenter. (ESPN estimates she’s now done about 5,300 SportsCenter episodes — she’s had a much lighter schedule in recent years.)
The 10 p.m. PT SportsCenter LA will now be a 1 a.m. ET episode shot at ESPN’s Bristol, Connecticut headquarters. Its anchors have yet to be announced.
“We’re grateful for Stan’s many contributions and all he has brought to SportsCenter over the years,” ESPN executive vice president David Roberts said in a statement shared with THR. “We thank him and wish him continued success.”
“My life is in Los Angeles is now,” Verrett wrote on X, where Verrett noted he’s “not retiring.”
“Our business has changed greatly since I got in,” Verrett added later. “It’s time that I changed along with it,” he said.
Boy, has it changed — and boy, is it changing still.
ESPN’s soccer studio shows are also being relocated by L.A. to Bristol. ESPN’s Los Angeles Production Center will live on through continuing NBA and WNBA studios shows, we’re told. The LAPC will also continue to provide support programming across a variety other sports, and to house both programming and non-programming (like operations, enterprise units, digital and social media, communications, etc.) employees.
Roughly 35 ESPN employees are impacted by the relocation, a source says. Each was given the option to relocate to Connecticut to continue their roles.
With one notable exception (a half-exception, really), all SportsCenters will now emanate from Bristol. The exception is for Scott Van Pelt, who films his solo, midnight SportsCenter in Washington, D.C. There, SVP has a small crew and a news team, but his SportsCenter episode is still produced in Bristol. The popular debate series Pardon the Interruption, where Reali started in 2000 as a researcher (officially) and the show’s “Stat Boy” (unofficially), shoots in the same D.C. studio.
Around the Horn isn’t just leaving New York City — in an effort to “modernize” ESPN’s programming, the reliable performer is leaving the airwaves altogether. The PTI companion series has aired nearly 5,000 episodes since its launch in 2022. Beginning on Tuesday, May 27, a 30-minute SportsCenter, anchored (from Bristol, of course) by Matt Barrie and Christine Williamson, will temporarily air in its place; a permanent solution has not yet been announced. Reali remains under contract with ESPN.
ESPN’s morning shows like Get Up and First Take will continue to shoot in New York.
The changes at SportsCenter are not just geography- and talent-based. ESPN is eyeing a future for its flagship show that is driven by artificial intelligence and the ESPN app.
Speaking to reporters in Disney’s Robert A. Iger building (Disney is ESPN’s parent company) in Manhattan last week, ESPN chief Jimmy Pitaro said that the company is hard at work at an interactive, customized version of the sports highlight show that can be tailored to every single user, based on their favorite teams, leagues or players.
Let’s say a user has favorited the Yankees, the Knicks, the Rangers, the Giants, and Notre Dame. ESPN will obviously surface those teams. A user can also favorite individual players (and the stars of your fave teams will be implied), but there’s also implicit data delivered based on further user behavior.
“So when you ask about personalized SportsCenter, it’ll be a combination of those two things,” Pitaro said, hinting that ESPN talent could find their voices and likenesses used in AI-powered form. “We are very much focused on on AI, and are working with some of our key talent right now, getting them on board with this idea that having the storytelling being driven by AI powers.”
ESPN is presenting its sports in a new way because fans consume sports in a new way. As such, AI is not the only new digital tech being rolled out by ESPN. A new streaming service, simply called “ESPN” ($29.99/month), is meant to have powerful sports brand meet consumption where it exists. The new ESPN app, which will house the old ESPN app (and probably sports betting, and fantasy), was formerly referred to as “Flagship.”
“As we explored options, we kept coming back to our four letters: ESPN,” Pitaro said. “There’s power in our name and there’s trust in our name, including, by the way, from the younger generation who love ESPN, and they see us as a digital first brand. ESPN is the place of record, and we represent the very best in sports. So that’s what we’re calling it. ESPN. Simple, straightforward, clear.”
The company’s ESPN+, often bundled with Disney+ and Hulu (now wholly owned by Disney), will continue to exist, but will be rebranded as “ESPN Select” once the new “ESPN” app launches. The current (basic, not plus) ESPN app has undergone recent upgrades, including improvements to navigation. Got all of that?
It isn’t that ESPN is abandoning studio shows, but the mix of those shows and where they live is changing. There is now a TikTokified version of SportsCenter that streams for Disney+, while outspoken talent like Pat McAfee and Stephen A. Smith become more and more prominent in coverage, and TNT Sports’ Inside the NBA joins the channel for occasional NBA pregame coverage.
ESPN Radio’s national lineup was already shaken up earlier this year. On February 10, 2025, Clinton Yates took over Mike Greenberg’s 10 a.m. ET to noon ET time slot, leading into another new show Joe & Q — hosted by Joe Fortenbaugh and Q Myers — from noon to 3 p.m. ET. The same day, new show GameNight took the 10 p.m. ET to 1 a.m. ET slot.
ESPN also announced that it had picked up Rich Eisen’s show, bringing the host back to the company after years away, but the show will now be streaming-first.
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#Huge #Coming #ESPN #Memorial #Day
