Up until June, listeners to ESPN radio could tune in weekday mornings and hear expert sports analysis from the show Keyshawn, JWill & Max. Unfortunately, that wasn’t popular enough to survive a massive round of layoffs by parent company Disney.
There’s another wrinkle here: before the layoffs even happen, two of the three hosts were fired from the network, but we’ll get to that in a second.
What was the ‘Keyshawn, JWill, and Max?’ show?
The show was hosted by former NFL star Keyshawn Johnson, former NBA player Jay Williams, and TV host Max Kellerman. It covered the sports news of the day with both opinion and analysis. On paper, it seemed like a match made in heaven.
It didn’t hurt that they had more than a million followers on Twitter. However, the network wanted something new, and the ratings weren’t mind-blowing, and ESPN New York replaced it with the DiPietro & Rothenberg morning show.
What happened to ‘Keyshawn, JWill, and Max?’
The show was cancelled in June, a few weeks before Keyshawn and Max were fired. The dismissals were a part of Disney’s three rounds of layoffs, where more than 20 top reporters and analysts were let go.
Initially, those layoffs were not supposed to affect on-air personalities, which obviously turned out to be untrue. The full number of layoffs needed was 7,000. That’s a lot of sports people.
Kellerman used to be a hot property at the company. He was an integral part of First Take until Stephen A. Smith decided to change up the format of the show. Kellerman got his own show This Just In, as well as being teamed up with Johnson and Williams.
Unfortunately, neither could get the attention needed to warrant not being cancelled. Despite being fired by the company, Johnson still gets the $18 million he was promised as per his contract.
An internal memo by ESPN, reported by the New York Post, provided some insight into the firing rationale.
βIn order to identify additional cost savings, ESPN determined it necessary to turn the cost management focus to public-facing commentator salaries, and that process has begun. This exercise will include a small group of job cuts in the short-term and an ongoing focus on managing costs when we negotiate individual contract renewals in the months ahead.β
The memo went on to say that “these are difficult decisions” that will affect “individuals who have a tremendous impact on our company.”
Considering the amount of their salaries, they’re doing just fine.