Norby Williamson, the ESPN veteran who has managed everything from NFL coverage to “SportsCenter,” is leaving the Disney sports-media giant abruptly just weeks after being called out on camera in a surprise and unprecedented outburst by daytime host Pat McAfee.
The McAfee contretemps is not at the root of Williamson’s departure, according to a person familiar with the matter, but rather disagreements between the executive and the longer-term strategy being devised by Burke Magnus, who was handed oversight of content and news production in March of last year.
“Almost 40 years ago in 1985, I was so very fortunate to be offered an opportunity at ESPN,: Williamson said in a statement that was issued in a memo to staffers Friday. “Due to the exceptional hard work, creativity and commitment of the people of ESPN, and to a much lesser extent my contributions, I’d like to think we’ve left our great company in a far better place than we found it.”
ESPN intends to conduct a search for a new senior content executive, Magnus said.
Williamson was known to be an exacting producer who was not shy about confronting talent about how to proceed on camera. He was focused on giving ESPN viewers the basics, and tended not to favor programing that tried to move outside the lines.
But in an era when more fans of sports and news are gravitating to less varnished presentations from influencers on YouTube or other social media outlets, there is new pressure to give hosts on established networks more leeway to act less formally. MSNBC recently allowed many of its best-known hosts, including Joy Reid, Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski, Rachel Maddow and Nicolle Wallace, to vehemently disagree with an NBC News decision to hire Ronna McDaniel, the former Republican National Committee chairperson, as a political analyst.
While well-known to sports-media aficionados, Williamson may not be the top name bandied about by the average sports fan. That changed in January when McAfee, a relatively new hire at ESPN who already had established himself as a popular sports commentator on YouTube, was given new daytime duties on ESPN2. The raucous host gave a spotlight to conspiracy theories from NFL player Aaron Rodgers and spent time calling out Williamson for what McAfee said were leaks to media outlets about the ratings performance of his program. ESPN has paid millions to license the property for its own schedule.
