So does ESPN care that he's essentially using them for his financial gig? I guess as long as he delivers for them too then they're fine with it...
I think ESPN was fine with it before, and I'm sure they were aware of everything Steve had going on around him. However, I'm not sure ESPN will be fine with it becoming public knowledge that he has a side gig orbiting his hosting responsibilities and that he only spends an hour to two hours prepping for the ESPN stuff.
Again--I think ESPN was knew and was fine with it when it was under wraps, but now it becomes a perception issue for the network. Some guys we work with had a secretary for a while who they really liked and let her do some side medical transcription work at the office as long as their stuff took #1 priority. Worked great for years as she was a diligent worker who made it work. That is, until she told a co-worker how grateful she was that she was allowed to do that so she could put her husband through undergrad and now grad school. Suddenly, the entire support staff wanted to be able to do similar things, and it caused a blistering headache and people quit over it---it went on for years with no problems until other people, who were perfectly happy before they knew about it, found out about it, and some even quit over it.
Steve may be able to juggle the different roles and only spend that limited time preparing and still deliver a stellar product, but now there rises the possibility of other guys with side-gigs wanting to work them in, and other former pro talent thinking they can get away with limited prep, and suddenly what was the status-quo before causes ESPN to rethink things.
Perception is reality, and this just slipped into public perception and the perception of other NFL on-screen talent.Statistics: Posted by snoscythe — Tue Feb 14, 2017 12:13 pm
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