Pitaro has shifted ESPN's focus towards more of a traditional sports news outletESPN IMAGES
ESPN President Jimmy Pitaro in his first year on the job has "accomplished exactly what his Disney bosses wanted," turning ESPN into a "quietly purring content machine," according to Bryan Curtis of THE RINGER. Pitaro has "brought an end to an interesting if chaotic period in which ESPN threatened to grow into something other than a meat-and-potatoes sports network," which is now its "explicit goal." Under former President John Skipper, ESPN was "creative in ways you never expected." Curtis: "Wesley Morris was an ESPN employee. So was Nate Silver. There was a nightly edition of 'SportsCenter' that had pictures of Bob Marley and the Notorious B.I.G. on the set." Pitaro's ESPN has "traded that expansive vision for a vision of the 'old,' pre-Skipper ESPN." It is "interesting" that some of Skipper's "period choices are now portrayed as editorial mistakes the new regime is trying to correct." Another "striking difference between the Skipper and Pitaro regimes is how decisions are made." Though Skipper "often downplayed it, his decisions had the whiff of moral directives." Curtis: "To hear Pitaro tell it, data is now ESPN's god." In '18, ESPN felt like a "network set to silent mode" (THERINGER.com, 12/20).
