ESPN has undergone a lot of changes since the beginning of 2023. One of the biggest changes is that Mike Soltys will no longer be a constant at the network. Soltys started with the company as an intern and worked his way up to Vice President of Corporate Communications for the Worldwide Leader.
Earlier this year, the 43-year ESPN veteran was included in the first round of extensive layoffs that are still ongoing. Given his role and standing, he had the opportunity to stop by the Short & To The Point podcast with Jessica Kleinschmidt and comment about the layoffs and his final day at the company.
Because of his four-plus decades worth of experience, Soltys has a unique perspective about the layoffs that have come through ESPN. In reflecting on his own departure, he commented on layoffs in recent years not being performance-based, but rather as part of a bigger cost-cutting measure. This most recent round of layoffs saw several key employees both in front of and behind the cameras depart the company.
Despite his own layoff and the many others that occurred this year, Soltys offered a bright outlook for the future of the company, but issued a warning about future morale at the network.
“I hope for ESPN’s sake—and I remain a fan and a believer that it’s going to continue to prosper—but I hope they can figure to make their next inevitable layoffs more performance-based than what they have been,” Soltys told Kleinschmidt. “When people are gone, companies move forward… so looking ahead for the people that are there, a lot of people said to me, ‘It happened to you guys, it can happen to me,’ and you don’t really want that as part of your culture. They need to figure out a way to fix that to help the morale go up.”
That’s a refreshing perspective considering that Soltys could be bitter about his exit from the Worldwide Leader. And yet, he’s still a believer in ESPN and ultimately what lies ahead for the network.
“I have certainly had my petty moments the last couple of months, but I’m a firm believer that you want to be positive in life and you want to be optimistic. And you’re going to be a happier person if you hang onto that positivity,” Soltys said. “I look back, I had 43 great years at an amazing place, had wonderful friends, had experiences every year that some people don’t get in a lifetime.”
Soltys also looked back at his final day at ESPN’s campus, which he described as “pretty emotional.”
While he was in limbo for essentially two months, it did afford Soltys the ability to share stories and catch up with so many great friends in the ESPN cafeteria. He also received tributes on social media and emails for the impact he had on a lot of people’s careers and lives.
“I compared it to the Mark Twain thing about attending your own funeral, which was a really nice thing,” he said. “Amidst losing your job, to get that kind of feedback from people that you influenced in their life, that you were helpful in their life and people that were great friends. The last day, I had ideas of what I was going to do, but late in the afternoon, people just packed into my office and would gather outside my office. It was a very emotional time just kind of walking out, carrying my Diana Taurasi, Emeka Okafor UConn uniforms, ESPN magazine covers—my last things sitting in my office—which proved well because I could hold it up and block my face from the tears.
“It was a very emotional time because I frankly didn’t want to leave and thought that I would work there until the point that I said, ‘OK enough,’ and I wasn’t yet at that point.”
Short and to the Point with Jessica Kleinschmidt is available wherever you get your podcasts.
