ESPN exec Williamson is out after 4 decades in Bristol (2024)

One of sports media’s most influential executives is out at ESPN.

Norby Williamson, who had his hand in almost all parts of ESPN’s content and business areas, from programming, production and news during his nearly four decades at ESPN, will no longer be working at the company, effective immediately, according to an ESPN staff memo.

ESPN president of content Burke Magnus made the decision, even though Williamson had multiple years on his contract, according to executives briefed on the move.

Magnus wanted to go in a different direction as the company headed forward and felt Williamson was not the best person to oversee production.

An executive with direct knowledge of the decision told The Athletic, “It was time.”

In recent months, Williamson had been in the news after Pat McAfee — host of “The Pat McAfee Show,” which airs on ESPN — claimed during his show that Williamson was the source of leaked information about the program’s poor TV ratingsand called Williamson a “rat.” ESPN sources said that the incident had no bearing on Friday’s decision.

“This had absolutely nothing to do with the Pat McAfee episode,” former ESPN EVP Mark Shapiro, who worked closely with Magnus and Williamson and is now the president of Endeavor and TKO, told The Athletic. “Norby wasn’t fully aligned on the content vision Jimmy (Pitaro) and Burke had set. More than anything else after his incredible run, it was time to pass the torch.”

In the memo sent to ESPN staff, Magnus said that a “full search for a new senior content executive to help lead our team” is underway. The thought at ESPN is that multiple people might fill Williamson’s job or that his responsibilities could be divided up differently.

Writer and podcaster Jemele Hill, the former ESPN personality, experienced some professional friction with Williamson, like some other on-air talents.

“My reaction is somewhere between an amused chuckle and ‘never thought I’d see the day,'” Hill told The Athletic. “I don’t know the circ*mstances behind his departure, but I guess it wasn’t a coincidence an earthquake hit New York City the same day this announcement was made.”

Williamson was as influential as one could be at ESPN without serving as a president. His recent responsibilities included oversight of ESPN’s NFL and college football content. He is most associated with “SportsCenter,” which he has had a heavy hand in running.

Williamson joined ESPN in 1985 as an employee in the company’s mailroom and quickly rose through the ranks, eventually becoming one of the most powerful executives at the company, giving him the ability to make or break careers.

“I was so very fortunate to be offered an opportunity at ESPN,” Willamson said in the internal memo from Magnus. “Due to the exceptional hard work, creativity and commitment of the people at 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.”

In January, McAfee accused Williamson of sabotaging his program by leaking false viewership information to the media.

“There are some people actively trying to sabotage us from within ESPN,” McAfee said. “More specifically, Norby Williamson is the guy who is attempting to sabotage our program.”

ESPN eventually sent out a statement saying that everyone was on the same page. Magnus was photographed soon after with McAfee at a football game, and McAfee posted the photo on social media.

That was the final chapter of Williamson’s run, which ended on Friday.

“Norby was ESPN,” Traug Keller, who had his own long run as an influential ESPN executive, told The Athletic. “No one took the command and control like he did. He has an uncanny knack for turning ratings around as he did with ‘SportsCenter,’ ‘First Take’ and countless others. And he did the tough stuff that top executives above him wanted done but would not do themselves. He is on the Mount Rushmore of ESPN right next to George Bodenheimer.”

Required reading

• What happens next for Pat McAfee and ESPN? Where things stand between the star and network

(Photo of Norby Williamson in 2005: Marc Bryan-Brown / Getty Images)