ESPN analyst Dan Orlovsky said that after this year’s Super Bowl, when his contract with ESPN was done, he was very near leaving the network to head West for FOX.
Orlovsky was a guest on The Press Box podcast with Bryan Curtis and answered a question about his return to ESPN. He was asked if it was tied to him being able to broadcast Monday Night Football and its second game of a doubleheader.
“It was the tipping point, if I’m dead-honest, yeah,” said Orlovsky. He then went on to talk about where he was at mentally when it was time to negotiate for a new deal, his first since his initial one.
“This was the first time I was like ‘I really want to see what other opportunities there are,'” Orlovsky mentioned. “If it means going to a different network or if it means moving from Connecticut and away from the East Coast, I was ready for that.”
Orlovsky then got into how close he was in being ready to make the leap from ESPN to another network.
“There were moments in the negotiation that I thought it was going to happen. I honestly did,” he said. “Me and my wife were just about to go to Los Angeles and start looking at homes and schools.”
Orlovsky also noted that he felt like he needed to be challenged with something new and that was a major reason why he felt the tug to leave.
“I wanted to be challenged with a new opportunity. I believed that I was ready for it,” he said. “I believe that the work that I had done had proved that I was ready for it. When ESPN finally came to my people, my reps, and said this is what we want to do. I can’t pass up that opportunity. I can’t leave because that is an opportunity and situation that is an incredible one.”
He ceded that it would have been quite difficult to leave ESPN if he did make that choice.
“It was going to be tough to leave ESPN because I grew up watching SportsCenter like so many kids but I grew up watching SportsCenter forty minutes from it. ESPN was like heaven, so to speak… I adore the people I get to work with. To leave the NFL Live crew would have been probably the hardest thing.”
Curtis followed-up by asking if he meant FOX when he said he was looking to bolt for Los Angeles. He confirmed and then answered if the opportunity to call NFL games was on the table for him at FOX.
“That was going to be part of that transition, yes.”
