Elle Duncan is officially leaving ESPN for Netflix.
The Athletic’s Andrew Marchand reported on Tuesday that Duncan and ESPN are parting ways as she joins Netflix’s sports operation. There had been some hope ESPN could keep Duncan around for women’s basketball coverage even as she took on the Netflix role, but that’s not happening.
NEWS: Elle Duncan will not continue on the WNBA or women’s college basketball for ESPN with move to Netflix, The Athletic has learned.https://t.co/VhLHMhPD7X
— Andrew Marchand (@AndrewMarchand) November 25, 2025
Duncan has been one of ESPN’s most visible personalities for five years, hosting the 6 p.m. SportsCenter and anchoring WNBA Finals coverage. She’s also hosted the women’s basketball version of College GameDay and repped ESPN at corporate events.
According to Marchand, there’s no animosity in the split. Duncan is well-regarded internally and has a strong relationship with ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro. But the reality is Netflix has become a legitimate competitor to ESPN in the sports space, and that’s changed the dynamic.
Duncan is getting a substantial pay raise and will work significantly less at Netflix, per Marchand. The deal lets her appear on other platforms, though Netflix gets priority if there are scheduling conflicts. Her ESPN contract runs through December, so she could still pop up on the network before the end of the year, or Netflix could push to get her out early for Christmas.
Netflix has been stacking sports rights without any obvious plan tying them together. Duncan gives those disparate events a consistent face, someone who can front Christmas NFL one month and Opening Day baseball the next without Netflix needing to borrow talent from competitors.
As we wrote this morning, Duncan’s hire settles the question of whether Netflix is serious about sports. The company keeps saying it doesn’t want regular-season packages like Amazon or Peacock. But hiring a full-time host suggests Netflix understands it needs more than occasional spectacles to make this work.
About Sam Neumann
Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.