Bomani Jones, the host of the popular podcast The Right Time with Bomani Jones, is not expected to have his contract renewed by ESPN, according to a report by Front Office Sports. Jones’ current contract expires at the end of July, and the news comes just three weeks after news broke that his HBO show, Game Theory with Bomani Jones, received the ax by the outlet.
“The economic fate of people in sports media is getting dicier and dicier by the day,” Jones said. “I think the ESPN layoffs were the beginning of it in a lot of ways. Seeing what happened with The New York Times shutting down their sports department and they moved those people to other desks, but at some point they’re probably going to deem those people to be a surplus and they’re not going to be there anymore.”
Jones’ fate is reportedly unrelated to the ESPN talent layoffs that took place earlier this month, which involved the departure of established veteran talent including Jeff Van Gundy, Suzy Kolber and Jalen Rose.
He first joined the “Worldwide Leader” as a writer in 2004 for the now-defunct Page 2. He returned in 2012 to co-host Highly Questionable alongside Dan Le Batard for four years, followed by High Noon featuring Pablo Torre.
At the moment, Jones occasionally hosts The Evening Jones podcast. With his forthcoming contract expiration, it is unknown whether or not he will return to it regularly or embark on a new job or project. Its first podcast episode in over one year was released in early July speaking about the end of Game Theory.
In his conversation with Andrew Cohen of Front Office Sports, Jones expressed confusion over why ESPN is purportedly speaking with sports leagues about purchasing an equity stake in the company. It comes at a time when artificial intelligence is threatening the livelihoods of many in the industry as networks look to cut costs and streamline processes.
“There’s a level of creativity that the computers are never going to be able to replace that will always necessitate people,” Jones said. “What AI can do is write a game story. There’s a lot of things in our world that AI can do that really can affect the employment prospects that a lot of us have in this game.”
