Reporters and television personalities laid off from ESPN as part of the network’s April purge have faced a thorny choice. Due to ESPN’s enforcement of the non-compete clauses in all contracts, the departed talent can’t take media jobs similar to the ones they left, unless they’re willing to forfeit their salaries from the Worldwide Leader. That means if they want to keep cashing ESPN checks, they have to essentially sit on the sidelines until their contracts end.
Or, of course, they can pursue jobs that don’t violate their non-competes. For example, former SportsCenter anchor Jaymee Sire landed a gig as a floor reporter on a Food Network show, while reporters Ed Werder and Ethan Sherwood Strauss, among others, have focused on podcasting. And it seems that ex-ESPN college basketball reporter Andy Katz has a similar idea.
UConn announced this week that Katz will serve as the in-stadium host for Huskies football games at Rentschler Field. Katz shared the news in a video tweeted out Wednesday.
https://twitter.com/UConnHuskies/status/902963126848679937
This is obviously a different sort of gig for Katz, whose describes himself in his Twitter bio as a “Reporter. Anchor. Podcast host.” Instead of reporting on college teams, he’ll be reporting for a college team, and instead of breaking big news he’ll be, presumably, interviewing people running fundraising drives or something.
But assuming this job doesn’t violate Katz’s non-compete (and it’s hard to imagine it would), it makes a lot of sense. He gets to stay at least somewhat busy, make some extra money and keep living in Connecticut as his ESPN contract runs up. UConn football, meanwhile, gets to be maybe the only program in the country with an in-stadium host who’s on a first-name basis with a former president.