Gene Wojciechowski, the longtime ESPN college football writer and feature reporter for its College GameDay program, revealed on social media this past Friday that it was his last day on the company books.
Wojciechowski, who was reportedly laid off by ESPN two years ago and announced that June 30, 2023 was his final day with the network, posted on social media expressing his gratitude to several members of the company both past and present.
“After 27 1/2 yrs, my official last day on the ESPN books,” Wojciechowski wrote in a post on X. “Owe 1,000 thanks, but forever grateful to J Skipper, J Papanek, Steve Wulf, P Stiegman, Lee Fitting, Mike McQuade, D Kraft, Joe W, @KirkHerbstreit , @ReceDavis , Tom Rinaldi, @Jimmyggg44, @cbfowler +every editor/prod/crew.”
Wojciechowski first joined ESPN in 1998 where he contributed to its football coverage and sports magazine. Prior to that time, he was working as the national college football and college basketball columnist for the Chicago Tribune, which was preceded by reporting on both of these sports for the Los Angeles Times. Wojciechowski had prior experience reporting on the NFL for the Denver Post and Dallas Morning News and is a graduate of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
The reporter was said to be part of layoffs by The Walt Disney Company that eliminated 7,000 jobs in an effort to cut $5.5 billion in costs, a mark the company ended up exceeding by approximately $2 billion. In addition to Wojciechowski, some of the other names that were reported as being affected by the layoffs included Max Kellerman, Suzy Kolber, Jeff Van Gundy and Steve Young.
Since he has no longer been working for the company, ESPN has made several alterations to College GameDay with the additions of Pat McAfee, Nick Saban and ‘Stanford’ Steve Coughlin. In his final season with the network, the show averaged 2.1 million viewers, indicative of its most-watched regular-season in history at that time.
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