When former ESPN President John Skipper resigned in December, shock waves rippled through the sports network.
But this week, The Hollywood Reporter’s James Andrew Miller [revealed](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/features/john-skipper-details-espn-exit-cocaine-extortion-plot-1094657) that behind that departure was a cocaine extortion plot, just adding to the disbelief.
No one Miller spoke to “saw any kind of indication that he had been using,” the reporter told Cheddar Friday. “There was just widespread shock.”
Even Skipper himself did not know he would resign when he did. That day “he woke up as president of ESPN, fully believing he was going to continue to be president of ESPN,” Miller explained.
But Skipper told him that he was “threatened concerning a purchase of cocaine” by an unidentified person.
After revealing this to Bob Iger, CEO at Disney, which owns ESPN, Skipper resigned, leaving behind a company he had worked at for almost three decades.
During his time as president, Skipper led the company’s aggressive push to secure long-term agreements with sports leagues to cover live events.
But the network has been losing subscribers for years, and its outlook even under Skipper was already murky.
Miller said ESPN is now “straddling two eras.”
“It’s got one foot in this unbelievably successful past, and it’s got another foot in a very, very uncertain future because of cord-cutting and rising programming costs.
“There’s a lot more uncertainties about what ESPN will be like five or ten years from now than there probably ever has been in its history.”
For the full interview, click [here](https://cheddar.com/videos/inside-john-skippers-abrupt-departure-from-espn).
Cheddar's Need2Know Podcast for Tues., June 16, 2020.
Traditionally around this time of the year, advertisers and agencies attend hours of pitches from media companies featuring their most promising TV shows and marquee events for the upcoming year. Like so many things in 2020, this year is different.
Super Bowl MVP Patrick Mahomes is among more than a dozen NFL stars who united to send a passionate video message to the league about racial inequality.
The NBA’s Board of Governors has approved a 22-team format for restarting the league season in late July at the Disney campus near Orlando, Florida.
The baseball players’ association has given management a wide-ranging response to a 67-page proposed set of protocols for a season to be played during the coronavirus pandemic.
NASCAR drivers will be returning to Darlington Raceway this weekend in South Carolina, but even with those loud engines, it'll be a much quieter racetrack. After a two month suspension due to COVID-19, the racing organization will hold it's first race without fans in the stands or high fives in Victory Lane. Jill Gregory, executive vice president and chief marketing officer at NASCAR, talked to Cheddar Friday.
A person familiar with the decision tells The Associated Press that Major League Baseball owners have given the go-ahead to making a proposal to the players’ union that could lead to the coronavirus-delayed season starting around the Fourth of July weekend in ballparks without fans.
Under 1% of Major League Baseball employees tested positive for antibodies to COVID-19, the illness caused by the new coronavirus. Results were based on 5,603 completed records from employees of 26 clubs.
The Philadelphia Flyers and 76ers are set to offer refunds or credits for unplayed regular-season games at their shared arena because of the coronavirus pandemic.
The public trading debut of the sports-betting company comes at an odd time for the company. With sports events all on hold, the platform's users are being encouraged to bet on other odds, like episodes of 'Survivor.'
