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).
It's no secret that much of the popularity of Epic Games' smash hit Fortnite comes from its status as a free-to-play game. Now, Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter says two other surprising titles may make the switch: Overwatch and Call of Duty.
It's become par for the course for Epic Games to release game-changing items in Fortnite just before tournaments. Ghost Gaming's Kayuun shares his worries for what that means for competitive Fortnite.
In a sign of how attitudes around gambling have changed as laws around it have softened, the NFL announced its first-ever partnership with a gambling company, naming Caesars as the league's official casino sponsor. Chris Holdren, chief marketing officer for Caesars, told Cheddar that the sponsorship represents the beginning of a relationship that could eventually become one where the NFL is directly endorsing sports betting.
Bull riding isn't just for the rodeo, anymore. It's coming to a major city near you ー and streaming online ー thanks largely to the efforts of Colorado-based Professional Bull Riders (PBR). And PBR CEO Sean Gleason told Cheddarthe organization has plenty more tricks up its sleeve to keep its momentum going.
The markets opened up sharply higher on Friday after Thursday's big sell-off. The turnaround was due in large part to investor optimism over the upcoming U.S.-China trade talks but also the December jobs report. The U.S. economy added 314,000 jobs last month, topping the 184,000 jobs expected. Plus, Professional Bull Riders CEO Sean Gleason and bull rider Tanner Bryne stopped by to chat about growing bull riding in the U.S. in an ever-changing media landscape.
These are the headlines you Need 2 Know for Friday, Jan. 4, 2019.
Fitness and beauty booking tool Mindbody is planning to make a play for the next big thing in wellness ー on-demand video, CEO Rick Stollmeyer told Cheddar on Thursday. "You can expect us to be playing in that space because we think that the on-demand and streaming video revolution hitting the fitness space is a big breakthrough," Stollmeyer said.
These are the headlines you Need 2 Know for Wednesday, Jan. 2, 2019.
These are the headlines you Need 2 Know for Monday, Dec. 31, 2018.
There's a new mixed-martial arts league on the block. The Professional Fighters League ー or PFL ー is wrapping up its inaugural season with a championship match on New Year's Eve. According to Peter Murrary, the CEO of the league, the match's purse, $1 million, is a major draw for athletes ー money talks, and can mark achievement.
