John Skipper’s ESPN departure comes at a crucial time for the sports network

Recode

The former ESPN president had a lot of issues on his plate recently, from cord-cutting to mass layoffs to sports rights fees to the social media use of its stars to dealing with the Disney-21st Century Fox merger. And last week, ESPN was hit with allegations of sexism and sexual harassment in a Boston Globe exposé. “We’ve seen a bunch of big-deal media executives start to head for the exits recently, but this one is different: ESPN is both one of the most important properties in the media world and one whose clout and importance — once unquestioned — is very much up for debate,” says Peter Kafka. “But Skipper, who had re-signed a deal this year that was supposed to keep him at ESPN through 2021, presumably felt he could make a go of it.”

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