Layoffs and job cuts at ESPN and across the Walt Disney Company are far from over. According to Dan Le Batard though, there are two employees of the network that should consider themselves safe.
Michael Wilbon was a guest this week on Le Batard’s South Beach Sessions podcast. In the course of praising the kindness and mentorship he received from Wilbon and Tony Kornheiser, Le Batard put their place in the ESPN pantheon in perspective.
“You had a seminal program that somehow still exists, okay?” he said in reference to the duo’s show, Pardon the Interruption. “That has made its way through the labyrinth of all ESPN things, isn’t subject to cuts, because you guys are now above cuts, like you’ve got seniority.”
Whether or not that is true, Wilbon was certainly happy to hear that said out loud.
“I’ve got a kid in high school. I need to be above cuts.”
PTI debuted in October of 2001. It quickly became a model for studio programming at ESPN. It also led to more opportunities for Wilbon, including a regular role on NBA Countdown, and Kornheiser, including a brief stint in the Monday Night Football booth.
The show also led to a deeper relationship between ESPN and producer Erik Rydholm. He would go on to develop Around the Horn, Highly Questionable and the television simulcast of ESPN Radio’s The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz for the network.
The latter two starred Le Batard. He gave Wilbon and Kornheiser credit for preparing him for those opportunities by giving him a platform on PTI very early in the show’s tenure.
“You are tenured at what it is that you do and from the very beginning, you shared that with me, and you didn’t have to.”
Le Batard has been doling out praise to several former ESPN colleagues lately. In recent weeks, he gushed over Mike Breen and Mina Kimes on recent episodes of South Beach Sessions. Earlier this week, he told Scott Van Pelt that the SportsCenter anchor always puts a smile on Le Batard’s face when he is on television.
