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).
Ezra Kucharz, chief business officer at DraftKings, talked to Cheddar about the online sportsbook's deal with the NFL and the future of legal sports gambling in the U.S.
New England Patriots Safety Devin McCourty and Broad Street Ventures president, Ralonda Johnson, joined Cheddar to discuss the VC firm's mission to educate athletes and Black and brown investors to expand their financial options.
Former NASCAR legend Jimmie Johnson spoke to Cheddar about tackling his childhood dream on the IndyCar circuit.
Sports trading card company Topps is combining with a special purposes acquisition company in a deal valued at $1.3 billion and seeking a public listing. Topps Co.
Major League Baseball has moved the All-Star Game from Atlanta’s Truist Park, a response to Georgia enacting a new law last month restricting voting rights.
Chris Marinak, Major League Baseball's chief operations and strategy officer, talked to Cheddar about health protocols for the 2021 season to avoid much of the toll COVID-19 took on the league last season.
David Kaval, president of the Oakland Athletics, talked to Cheddar about accepting bitcoin as payment for suites during baseball games at RingCentral Coliseum.
American Cornhole League co-founder and commissioner Stacey Moore spoke to Cheddar about partnering with sports betting giant DraftKings and touted the players in one of the newer televised sports to gain in popularity.
From Wall Street to Silicon Valley, these are the top stories that moved markets and had investors, business leaders, and entrepreneurs talking this week on Cheddar.
Olympic gold medalist Gabby Douglas spoke to Cheddar about the need for aspiring athletes to address both their mental and physical health and her partnership with Smoothie King.
