ESPN shook up its on-air talent on Thursday with a pair of shock firings.
Those given the pink slip included former NFL quarterback Robert Griffin III, an analyst who was widely seen as a rising star at the network and was one of its most vocal online voices.
Also axed Thursday was Sam Ponder, who’s long been the host of NFL Countdown—a popular show ESPN airs Sunday mornings between opening week and the Super Bowl that previews the day’s slate of games. It appears the show was Ponder’s only role at the network, with her reportedly not working between March and July.
The pair of firings were first reported by The Athletic, which cited sources who work at the Disney-owned network. One of those sources told the Athletic the firings were cost saving measures. Both Griffin and Ponder made seven figures, the report added.
The decision came as ESPN nears the close of its fiscal year at the end of September, which is when it often makes key personnel decisions.
Still, the decision to cut Griffin with two years left on his contract came as a shock to many. He appeared on a number of ESPN broadcasts, including as a play-by-play analysis during college football games and as a regular on the network’s NFL panels.
Griffin, whose known by his nickname RG III, was also among ESPN’s most active figureheads on social media, regularly opining on topics even when they involved his employer. He was hired by ESPN in 2021, the same year his NFL career ended.
The analyst specialized in football, but often weighed in on controversies across the sporting world. Two days before his firing, he wrote that Florida State University’s undefeated football team was slighted when it was left out of the college football playoff—a controversy ESPN is rumored to have had a hand in. A week earlier, he passionately defended the Algerian boxer Imane Khelif, who’d become the center of ridicule after people incorrectly claimed she was transgender.
Daren Stoltzfus, the sports director of the Florida news station WESH, was among the many people disheartened by ESPN’s decision to cut Griffin.
“I have no clue what he’s like to work with, but the guy is incredible on TV,” he said. “The sheer enthusiasm and joy he brought to the broadcasts made me excited every time he was on the screen.”
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