Neil Everett calls ESPN layoffs ‘sloppy,’ blasts network’s ‘people are our biggest asset’ mantra

Neil Everett departed ESPN in June 2023, and Linda Cohn announced her retirement before hosting her final SportsCenter on June 26. Everett gave 23 years to the network, and Cohn hosted SportsCenter more than anyone over 34 years. In other words, they’re overqualified to weigh in on ESPN’s recent round of layoffs.

ESPN laid off several notable on-air personalities, including Ryan Clark, David Lloyd, and Karl Ravech. Clark overshadowed them all because he was let go during NFL Live. 

Cohn already ripped ESPN on her recently launched eponymous YouTube show for treating her former colleagues with “zero respect.” But she isn’t done.

Richard Deitsch welcomed Cohn and Everett to the latest episode of Sports Media with Richard Deitsch and gave them the floor.

“I just thought the way it was handled was poor,” Cohn said. “Neil knows about when you’re not wanted anymore. But this one hit home. Obviously, you can like Ryan Clark, you can not like Ryan Clark, but he deserved a better exit. I mean, there was so many ways you could’ve told this guy. The night before, if you were concerned about this story breaking and who was breaking it, you could have never let him take the set at NFL Live. You could have done it differently. There’s just no excuse. I didn’t wanna hear it.”

Cohn disclosed that ESPN PR contacted her and expressed confusion around her criticism, but she didn’t flinch.

“I go, ‘Listen, I’ve been around the block a few times. I know how things could have been done, and it wasn’t done with Ryan Clark,'” Cohn said before noting that Lloyd, Ravech, and “the 150 other people behind the scenes” losing their jobs becoming an afterthought “got me really pissed off.”

Deitsch pivoted to Everett, who was recently laid off by the Portland Trail Blazers in disrespectful fashion.

“Big businesses make mistakes all the time,” Everett said of ESPN. “So, it’s subjective whether they make mistakes on who they decide to cut loose, and no one gets out of here alive. Your number is gonna come up eventually. But how they handled it, to Linda’s point, it’s just sloppy.”

Everett continued, “They used to have this saying there. It was so bullsh*t I tried to exorcise it from my mind. But it was ‘people are our biggest asset,’ or something like that. Well, then, live up to that.”

“That’s the hot take part of what’s happened,” Everett added. “The guy with the hot takes on the hot show becomes the hot take, whereas David Lloyd, nicest guy in the building [and] talented beyond all belief, just goes and does his job on SportsCenter, which used to be appointment viewing. When it’s time for him to go — and Karl Ravech, who did SportsCenter and batting lead-off on [MLB coverage]. Well, baseball’s out, Karl’s out. There’s no hot take with those guys, but there’s a hot take with a football player.”

Upon exiting ESPN, Everett pivoted into his broadcast role for the Trail Blazers — only for his second act to end similarly to his first, as a cost-cutting casualty. He told Front Office Sports that he learned he’d lost his Blazers job by reading about it in Forbes last week. With Cohn and Deitsch, Everett said, “I still have not heard from the Blazers.”

Cohn, meanwhile, looks forward to having “total freedom” on her podcast.

“Neil can relate to this,” she said. “Once you’re released, and in my case, it was mutually parting from the Worldwide Leader, it was great. I feel like I had total freedom […] to say what I wanted to say, to say what I feel in the moment.”