Last week brought another round of ESPN layoffs as the bleeding sports conglomerate continues to downsize. Chris Cote, a longtime producer for the wildly popular Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz on ESPN Radio, was among 300 employees laid off, announcing his departure from the Bristol-based media giant on Twitter.
Le Batard who, in recent years, has frequently come into conflict with upper-level ESPN executives, was irate when the company pulled the plug on his beloved staffer, calling Cote’s surprise layoff, “The greatest disrespect of my professional career.” At that point, the former Miami Herald columnist decided it was time to take matters into his own hands, rehiring Cote as his personal assistant while giving him a raise out of his own pocket (admittedly an easier trick to pull off when you’re pulling in $3.5 million annually).
“I got no notice, no collaboration,” vented Le Batard, who felt “blindsided” by ESPN’s treatment of Cote. “I have been wounded by this.”
The 33-year-old Cote has worked on The Dan Le Batard Show, which records from the Clevelander Hotel in Miami weekday mornings from 10 AM-1 PM ET, in some capacity since 2012. Cote’s father, veteran sports columnist Greg Cote, is also a frequent Le Batard contributor, appearing as a weekly guest, usually on Tuesdays.
“I very much understand this is the product of a very dangerous time and brutal time for the company and that we were affected less than most. The part that makes it so hurtful to me, is that you blindsided me,” lamented Le Batard during Wednesday’s broadcast. “Corporations don’t tend to be human, and if somebody had talked to me, I would have pleaded on the idea of humanity.”
Le Batard acknowledged that “some creativity was required,” but it was worth it to keep Cote, a longtime member of the show’s “Shipping Container” (the sports radio equivalent of Howard Stern’s iconic “Wack Pack”), on staff. “I will cover the raise. I will cover the entire thing,” said Le Batard, who joked that company higher-ups may not have even noticed Cote’s return now that the program is simulcast on subscription-based ESPN+.
“I’m not sure that anyone at ESPN is going to notice for like six weeks,” said Le Betard, hoping his latest act of defiance will fly under the radar. “This is a big, sprawling corporation. The people who oversee us don’t even understand much of what we do.”
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