On Friday, ESPN announced the end of Norby Williamson’s 40-year tenure with the network. He served as vice president of studio and event production but recently came under fire with show host Pat McAfee.
“Almost 40 years ago in 1985, I was so very fortunate to be offered an opportunity at ESPN,” Williamson wrote to his colleagues. “Due to the exceptional hard work, creativity and commitment of the people of ESPN, and to a much lesser extent my contributions, I’d like to think we’ve left our great company in a far better place than we found it.”
ESPN President of Content Burke Magnus issued a statement to the employees of the network on Friday. The team will now search for a new senior content executive to fill Williamson’s role.
“During Norby’s career, he made significant contributions across many important roles within Content. Through his steadfast commitment and attention to detail, Norby has had a lasting impact on the sports fans’ experience. His wide-ranging influence includes SportsCenter, breaking news coverage, immense creativity within event and studio productions and diverse storytelling across various ESPN platforms.”
According to Richard Deitsch, Williamson had time remaining on his contract with ESPN. The writer for the Athletic believes it was ultimately Magnus’ decision to move on from the long-time exec.
Pat McAfee accused Williamson of ‘sabotage’ with info leaks
This year, Pat McAfee’s first as a show host on ESPN, Norby Williamson came under fire directly from the former NFL player. He accused the exec by name of “sabotaging” The Pat McAfee Show.
“There are folks actively trying to sabotage us from within ESPN,” McAfee said, via Awful Announcing. “More specifically I believe Norby Williamson is the guy attempting to sabotage our program. I’m not 100 percent sure. That is just seemingly the only human that has information, and then somehow that information gets leaked and it’s wrong and then it sets a narrative of what our show is. And then are we just going to combat that from a rat every single time? I don’t know.”
A day before McAfee’s comments about Williamson, Andrew Marchand of the New York Post published an article with updated ratings of McAfee’s show, which airs following the conclusion of “First Take.” According to Marchand, “First Take” was handing McAfee a 583,000-viewer lead-in, and McAfee was maintaining just 302,000, a 48 percent drop. In addition, he reported that McAfee was down 12% compared to the same window last year when “SportsCenter” aired in the same timeslot.
Following the very public drama between the show host and executive, ESPN released a statement: “No one is more committed to and invested in ESPN’s success than Norby Williamson … We are thrilled with the multi-platform success … from the Pat McAfee Show across ESPN. We will handle this matter internally and have no further comment.”
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