In the three months since ESPN laid off about 100 front-facing employees in one fell swoop, the departed reporters/anchors/analysts have gone many different paths. Some have taken new jobs similar to their old ones, some have gone to work for teams, some have chugged along in their side gigs, some have focused on podcasting, some have left journalism altogether and many others have enjoyed an extended vacation while continuing to cash their checks from ESPN.
But it’s possible that no one who was laid off at ESPN is making a more interesting career move than former SportsCenter anchor Jaymee Sire, who announced Tuesday she’s headed for Food Network, where she will serve as floor reporter on an Iron Chef America spinoff called Iron Chef Showdown.
Sooooo excited to announce I'll be roaming the floor of Kitchen Stadium later this year as the new floor reporter for #IronChefShowdown! https://t.co/iLdSaYy6ft
— Jaymee Sire (@jaymee) July 25, 2017
Sire is no stranger to food criticism. Since 2011, when she worked for CSN Bay Area, she has run a food blog called “e is for eat,” and earlier this month she appeared on an episode of Food Network’s Beat Bobby Flay.
Iron Chef Showdown will be hosted by Iron Chef America frontman Alton Brown, who announced Tuesday that the new show will feature, “all the same culinary skill, strategy and stamina of Iron Chef, with more competitors, secret ingredients and over-the-top action.”
This sounds like a pretty fun gig for Sire, who clearly has a passion for food and now gets to be part of a massively popular franchise. And because her Food Network job presumably does not violate her ESPN non-compete, she will likely be paid by the Worldwide Leader in Sports until her contract there ends.
Sire said when she was laid off that her four years in Bristol had been some of the best of her career, but she seems to have landed on her feet as well as anyone hit by ESPN’s layoffs.
