Teams across Major League Baseball have been making cuts in the front office and elsewhere across the league, and they likely won’t be stopping in the coming days and weeks.
The Philadelphia Phillies are one such team, and on Wednesday, long-time radio host Jim Jackson announced that the team had let him go, claiming that he was a “luxury the organization can no longer afford in such uncertain times,” per Jackson’s farewell letter to Phillies fans.
Thanks for a great 14 year run… pic.twitter.com/atkok59bCB
— Jim Jackson (@JimJPhilly) October 14, 2020
Jackson joined the Phillies prior to the 2007 season, hosting pre and post-game radio shows on the Phillies Radio Network and occasionally calling play by play as well. He has also been the play by play voice of the Philadelphia Flyers for the last two-plus decades
Unfortunately, Jackson isn’t even the first broadcaster the Phillies have shed over the last couple of months. In August, dugout reporter (and fill-in play by play broadcaster) Gregg Murphy was one of many cuts by the NBC RSNs. While NBC owns the lion’s share of NBC Sports Philadelphia (75%), the Phillies own a significant part of the RSN as well (25%). The Phillies are five years into a 25-year, $2.5 billion TV deal with NBC Sports Philadelphia, which included the ownership stake.
