00:00ESPN announced that they will be laying off 300 employees amid a tremendous disruption in how fans consume sports.
00:08In a memo to staff on Thursday morning that was obtained by The Hollywood Reporter,
00:12chairman of ESPN and sports content Jimmy Patero wrote,
00:16Prior to the pandemic, we had been deeply engaged in strategizing how best to position ESPN for future success
00:22amidst tremendous disruption in how fans consume sports.
00:25The pandemic's significant impact on our business clearly accelerated those forward-looking discussions.
00:31The organizational change comes just a few weeks after ESPN's parent company, The Walt Disney Company,
00:37unveiled a sweeping organizational change to focus on direct-to-consumer and streaming initiatives.
00:43Patero also suggested that the company plans to shift its investment to align with Disney's overall strategic vision.
00:50In the short term, we enacted various steps like executive and talent salary reductions,
00:54furloughs, and budget cuts, and we implemented innovative operations and production approaches,
01:00all in an effort to weather the COVID storm.
01:02We have, however, reached an inflection point.
01:05Disney CEO Bob Chapek told CNBC when asked about ESPN following the reorg,
01:10We really like the direct-to-consumer model that we've got, but at the same time we have got relationships,
01:15we have tremendous cash flows generated from our traditional legacy media businesses,
01:19so we are not going to just walk away from those.
01:22For more on this story, head to THR.com.
01:25For The Hollywood Reporter News, I'm Neha Joy.
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