After shedding big-name personalities in a 2015 that saw cost-cutting across the board, ESPN is reportedly bringing Rachel Nichols back in 2016.
Nichols, who left ESPN in 2013 to host a show on CNN and contribute to the network on sports stories, is expected to anchor a program while also contributing to “SportsCenter,” “E:60” and other platforms, SI.com reported.
Second acts with ESPN have been hit-or-miss. Here’s a look at some of the more noteworthy ESPN sequels:
Keith Olbermann — Everyone in “The Business” thinks the guy is a TV genius, but he doesn’t seem to last long on TV. Olbermann went from being brilliant with Dan Patrick on SportsCenter to bitter on ESPN2 (aka, The Deuce) and then to Fox. He became an award-winning left-wing hero on MSNBC before getting lost on Current TV and returning to ESPN in 2013 as a commentator on an eponymous late-night program that bounced around ESPN’s networks. He was let go in 2015 following a string of stinging commentaries on NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, which ESPN swears had nothing to do with his banishment.
He once famously feuded with the Daily News and adopted the mantra, “Burned bridges? Take the tunnel” to sum up his nomadic career.
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Now he’s voicing a cartoon Humpback whale news anchor, Tom Jumbo-Grumbo, on Netflix’s BoJack Horseman.
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Suzy Kolber — In 1993, Kolber shared an anchor desk with a mustached, leather jacket-wearing Olbermann who, on The Deuce’s debut program, opened the broadcast by saying “Welcome to the end of my career.”
Three years later, it was Kolber who was gone, bolting Bristol for a gig as a studio host and NFL sideline reporter with Fox.
She returned to ESPN in 1999 and, outside of the Joe Namath incident — wrong place, wrong time for Kolber — her second tour with ESPN has been free of controversy. She’s the network’s second most-recognizable NFL host behind ESPN lifer Chris Berman.
Kolber re-upped with ESPN over the summer, keeping her on their screens for four more years.
Jason Whitlock — Whitlock was a Page 2 columnist in the early 2000s — he also did fill-in stints on “Pardon the Interruption” and “The Sports Reporters” — but lost his spot in Bristol after trashing some of his co-workers in an interview with The Big Lead.
He landed with AOL’s Fanhouse in 2006 but was gone a year later, before Fanhouse was shuttered, and began writing and podcasting for Fox Sports in 2007. He also held a column with the Kansas City Star until 2010.
In 2013 he announced on Bill Simmons’ podcast that he’d be returning to ESPN to launch “a black Grantland,” a site dedicated to covering sports and social issues. It never developed under Whitlock’s leadership and he was dumped in a 2015 purge that saw the network also part ways with Simmons and Colin Cowherd.
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He’s back with Fox and writing — about everything — on J.School, a Fox-branded satellite site and reportedly has a podcast and studio show in the works.
Michelle Beadle — A former update anchor for Michael Kay on ESPN-1050, Beadle got her break in 2009 co-hosting “SportsNation” with Cowherd. She left ESPN for NBC in 2012, doing some entertainment stuff wih “Access Hollywood” and covering the Olympics while hosting her own show “The Crossover” which was canceled after nine months.
“I couldn’t have gotten out of there faster,” she told the Daily Beast of her escape from NBC, with a year left on her deal, and reunion with ESPN.
Since returning in 2014, she’s gained attention for speaking out against the NFL for its handling of domestic violence issues and went head-to-head with Stephen A. Smith for his comments about women provoking men to act violently while discussing the Ray Rice incident.
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Stephen A. Smith — One half of ESPN’s hot mess of hot takes, Smith left the network in 2009 only to return, and climb the ranks the hard way, in 2011.
In his first tour, Smith was an NBA newsbreaker/commentator and hosted “Quite Frankly,” an interview show that was canceled in 2007. He tried to do the politics thing after leaving ESPN, but he was no Olbermann.
ESPN gave him an inch in 2011 — they brought him back as a bi-coastal radio host with shows on ESPN-1050 in New York and another on ESPN’s L.A. affiliate — and he took a mile.
Now he’s back to hollering on your TV screens — and getting in some trouble along the way, too, for bonehead comments — with Skip Bayless. They’ve also shoehorned him into their Sunday morning NFL coverage.
And to think, he was once a quiet high school reporter for the Daily News.
![Josh Hart doesn’t want to make the assumption — but the trend proved true at least through the first two games of the Knicks’ first-round playoff series against the Philadelphia 76ers, which means a similar trend could be true, too, in the second round against the Indiana Pacers. Jalen Brunson shot the ball poorly in four regular-season matchups against the 76ers. His slow shooting start in Games 1 and 2 — where he shot a combined 16-of-55 from the field — was not a surprise. Nor should it be a surprise if Brunson reduced the Indiana Pacer defense to ash […]](https://www.nydailynews.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/AP24033113916407.jpg?w=525 "Josh Hart doesn’t want to make the assumption — but the trend proved true at least through the first two games of the Knicks’ first-round playoff series against the Philadelphia 76ers, which means a similar trend could be true, too, in the second round against the Indiana Pacers. Jalen Brunson shot the ball poorly in four regular-season matchups against the 76ers. His slow shooting start in Games 1 and 2 — where he shot a combined 16-of-55 from the field — was not a surprise. Nor should it be a surprise if Brunson reduced the Indiana Pacer defense to ash […]")
