Former ‘SportsCenter’ anchor Max McGee discusses ESPN firing: ‘This isn’t the end of my story’

Max McGee’s departure from ESPN in February 2024 didn’t initially garner much attention. That was until The Athletic reported that his exit came “after the company received a complaint against him from a female employee, according to ESPN sources.”

Now, McGee is talking about what happened and his life since.

At the time, The Athletic’s reporting didn’t indicate the nature of the complaint that had been made against McGee; it was included in a report regarding former senior vice president of production Lee Fitting’s exit from ESPN. The revelation about McGee’s departure came amid a series of examples in the report that depict ESPN’s shifting approach to dealing with such behavior and accusations. McGee had told The Athletic that he had been advised not to comment on the matter.

Last weekend, the former SportsCenter anchor posted a video on Instagram (as noted by Front Office Sports) acknowledging he lost his job following a workplace investigation.

 

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“At the end of that process, I was terminated,” McGee said in the video. “People have asked me ever since what happened. The honest answer is that I can only tell you what I know. I was never provided the specific details of the complaint that ultimately led to that decision. I asked questions, I looked for answers, and I left that process with more uncertainty than clarity.”

A former sports anchor at the Baltimore CBS affiliate WJZ-TV, McGee joined ESPN in January 2022. The Temple alum’s hiring received plenty of fanfare due to his unique journey as a college dropout who had worked his way to the Worldwide Leader in Sports. However, he disappeared from the network’s airwaves in early 2024 without fanfare or explanation until The Athletic’s report. 

“For the last two years, I’ve mostly stayed quiet. Not because I didn’t have anything to say, but because I was trying to do what I thought was the right thing,” McGee continued. “What made it difficult was this wasn’t just a job—this was something I worked years toward.

“Now suddenly it was gone. Now I’m not making this video to attack anyone [or] blame anyone, and I’m not asking for sympathy. I’m making it because the silence has allowed other people to tell the story for me.”

McGee added that the “uncertainty” of not knowing the reasons behind the HR investigation decision has “been one of the hardest parts of the last two years.” Following his dismissal, he said he was unable to land other TV jobs and had to drive for Uber and move back home while trying to find another position in the industry.

“I’ve questioned myself. I’ve been angry, I’ve been embarrassed, I’ve been disappointed, and I’ve wondered whether I’d ever work in television again,” he said. “But I’ve also learned something: You don’t always get closure. You don’t always get a perfect explanation. Sometimes all you can decide is whether you’re going to keep going.

“This isn’t the end of my story, this is just a chapter of it.”