Tomorrow will be the last day for Ryen Russillo at ESPN Radio, as he plans to move to the L.A. area and try his hand at writing scripted television shows. Russillo yesterday noted he has been in the 1:00-4:00pm ET weekday time slot for more than eight years -- first co-hosting with Scott Van Pelt and in recent years hosting his own show -- and said he “wasn’t sure (he) wanted to move slots.” It was recently announced Russillo and Will Cain would be co-hosting a show during the 3:00-6:00pm weekday slot. Russillo noted his contract allows for him to talk to ESPN about a renegotiation if he was going to move time slots. Russillo: “With everything a lot of people in the company had to go through earlier this year (regarding layoffs), I just said, ‘Is there any way we can talk about an extension?’ ESPN said, ‘Absolutely, we’ll do this,’ and I was offered an extension. It was the same money that I make now. … It’s a lot of money, and I get that, but my days were going to be different. I was going to be in here on NBA hits for ‘SportsCenter’ for like 10 hours a day.” He said staying at ESPN would have had to involved “something where I felt like I was also growing creatively outside of ESPN Radio, some other entities, something else with television where I’m like, ‘I’m really really growing here.’” He said he “always wanted to write television shows,” and he has been “working on it ever since I went through the process two years ago of pitching a show.” He said the split has been “super amicable” and noted he will continue to host podcasts for the duration of his contract, which expires next summer ("The Ryen Russillo Show," ESPN Radio, 12/20).
