ESPN fired MLB reporter Marly Rivera after she reportedly directed a string of obscenities at a fellow reporter, who is the wife of Major League Baseball’s Vice President of Communications. WFAN’s Gregg Giannotti was dumbfounded by the development.
While discussing the situation on Boomer & Gio Thursday morning, Giannotti insinuated a double standard was at play.
“There’s been a ton of times in locker rooms where media guys have gotten in disagreements and called each other names,” Giannotti said. “The fact that Marly Rivera gets fired for this is absolutely an atrocity.”
“There has to be something else on top of this,” countered co-host Boomer Esiason. “Maybe this was a ‘last straw’ or something like that, maybe? There’s got to be more to the story, and there’s got to be something underlying. I know ESPN is laying off thousands of people while giving many people on the air millions of dollars. They’re laying off, what, 7,000 people? Maybe this was a good excuse to do that.”
As a point of fact, ESPN is not laying off 7000 people. The Walt Disney Company, which owns ESPN is. The layoffs are taking place across multiple divisions of the company, not just inside ESPN. Rivera’s exit was unrelated to the layoffs.
“That’s one of the things that popped into my head. They weren’t planning on firing her, there’s an incident and ope, ‘We can fire you for cause now, and send you on your way’. That would be even worse. She’s done a nice job. I don’t know what type of colleague she is. Maybe it is that situation where things have been stacked up…it just seems like this was a one-time incident that ended up getting her to lose her job. Which just sucks.”
Esiason mentioned several times how impressed he had been with Rivera’s ability to analyze and report on the game, saying she was “relaxed, and had very good knowledge, and takes on the game”.
“There’s no way she should lose her job over this. Just absolutely no way,” concluded Giannotti.
