Linda Cohn Calls ESPN Layoffs ‘Awful’ and Accuses Network of Zero Respect

When you spend three‑plus decades anchoring "SportsCenter," you learn a few things about the business—how fast it can change, how often people get blindsided, and just how little respect sometimes shows up in a corporate memo. Linda Cohn, who announced her retirement on June 22 and signed off for the last time on June 26, knows that better than most.

Just a few days after stepping away, Cohn launched her eponymous YouTube show. The timing felt inevitable: she needed a platform to speak freely, and the news of ESPN’s newest round of layoffs hit the wire while she was still figuring out the next chapter. "The ESPN layoffs were awful," she said, her voice tinged with the frustration of a longtime insider watching former colleagues suddenly become statistics.

She didn’t mince words. "You hate to see anybody lose their job, right? It doesn’t matter what they do. If you work for a big corporation, you’re usually blindsided. It’s just the way it is. It’s not fair. You’re never paid your worth," Cohn lamented, echoing a sentiment many workers feel when the rug is pulled from under them.

The real sting, according to Cohn, was how ESPN’s public‑relations team handled the situation. "They treated everyone on this latest firing list with zero respect. Zero," she said, pointing to what she described as a PR fiasco that could have been avoided with a simple heads‑up.

Take the case of Ryan Clark, a familiar face on "NFL Live," "Monday Night Countdown," "Get Up" and "First Take" since 2015. Reports suggest ESPN learned the news of his termination was leaking, so they pulled him off the set mid‑show and told him on air that his job was ending. "Why didn’t they tell him the night before? Why not before he walked onto the set? If you knew the story was going to break, the humane thing would have been to let him know ahead of time," Cohn asked, calling the handling "bumbling and fumbling".

Cohn didn’t stop at Clark. She shouted out other veterans who have been caught in the shuffle: beloved MLB voice Karl Ravech, who’s been with the network for 33 years, longtime "SportsCenter" anchor David Lloyd, and, she noted with a heavy sigh, the “over 150 people behind the scenes that were let go.”

For Cohn, it’s not just about numbers on a spreadsheet; it’s about the human element that gets lost when decisions are made behind closed doors. "When you’re laid off, when your salary is cut, you start thinking, ‘What do I do now?’" she said, underscoring the personal toll of corporate restructuring.

Her new YouTube series will likely continue to peel back the layers of a sports media empire that, for all its fanfare, is still a business at its core. Whether ESPN will take the criticism to heart remains to be seen, but Cohn’s message is clear: respect shouldn’t disappear the moment a contract ends.