For a generation of consumers and executives weaned on the primacy of ESPN’s extraordinary I.P.—from SportsCenter to Baseball Tonight, The Sports Reporters to Outside the Lines, 30 for 30, etcetera—the company that used to call itself the worldwide leader in sports has been muddling through a series of once-unthinkable humblings. In 2015, the network began its first wave of rolling cuts. Another few hundred roles were vaporized during Covid. In 2023, beloved stalwarts like Jeff Van Gundy and Suzy Kolber were axed while chairman Jimmy Pitaro focused on tucking in his needle-moving stars.