The cutbacks impacted the network’s coverage across the board, but the sport hit hardest was probably men’s college basketball where some of the biggest names in the industry such as Len Elmore, Andy Katz, Dana O’Neil, C.L. Brown and Eamonn Brennan were issued pink slips on Wednesday.
Why men’s college basketball?
The answer is obvious - ESPN doesn’t own the rights to the NCAA Tournament. Why over-saturate its coverage of the men’s college basketball regular season when March Madness will ultimately benefit CBS’ and Turner’s bottom lines more than ESPN’s? There can be no other explanation why ESPN would jettison some of the top voices in the sport.