Last week, Katie Nolan announced on Twitter that her time with ESPN, where she had been working since 2017, had come to an end.
I’ve thought about sending this tweet for weeks and I still have no clue how to make it not make you all roll your eyes. Alas: the obvious thing has happened. I no longer work at ESPN. I’m really grateful for my time here. I made incredible friendships and valuable mistakes.
— Katie Nolan (probably) (@katienolan) September 29, 2021
The move wasn’t considered a major surprise since Always Late, Nolan’s late-night show, was canceled last year, and Ashley Braband, her former podcast cohost, and producer, was part of ESPN’s November layoffs.
For the sake of brevity I’m gonna handle most of my thank yous via text, but I do want to publicly sing the praises of @AshleyBraband, a woman who made a lot of personal sacrifices in service of ESPN and myself, and who may never know how much that means to me.
— Katie Nolan (probably) (@katienolan) September 29, 2021
Nolan intimated that her podcast would continue but as far as what her plans might be beyond that remained unclear. Most of the speculation that been around Meadowlark Media, launched by former ESPN president John Skipper and former ESPN talent Dan Le Batard, both of whom were big fans of Nolan. Skipper even said outright last week that he would love to work with Nolan and Michelle Beadle.
“Yes, I enjoyed working with them. Yes, I think they’re talented. Of course, Meadowlark would be interested,” Skipper told Front Office Sports. “I have had good experiences in the past working with both Michelle and Katie. I think they’re both very talented individuals.”
In the meantime, Nolan did drop one interesting nugget on Twitter on Thursday. After the news hit that Bomani Jones would be hosting a show called “Game Theory” on HBO, the “Katie Nolan GIFs” Twitter account expressed disappointment that Nolan wouldn’t be the host. Nolan herself responded, saying that she had interviewed for the gig and was “crushed” not to get it.
https://twitter.com/katienolan/status/1446213671106093061
“I interviewed for it,” Nolan said. “Got a little ahead of myself thinking I was gonna get it. Was crushed when I didn’t. BUT: the most important thing is that the show will exist, and bo is gonna knock it out of the park.”
There don’t appear to be any hard feelings between the former ESPN colleagues and chances are that Nolan will have another role lined up soon enough, whether it’s with Meadowlark or elsewhere.
