Dan Le Batard Says He Was 'Blindsided' By Producer Layoff, Re-Hires Him Out of Own Pocket

Dan Le Batard, speaking on his show's podcast on Spotify, said that finding out that his producer, Chris Cote, was included in ESPN's round of layoffs last week was the most disrespectful moment of his career, because he was blindsided by it. He got no heads up. Le Batard said that he has since re-hired Cote out of his own pocket, with a raise, as his personal assistant. He will remain a part of the show.

"We were blindsided by him being let go," Le Batard said. "It's the greatest disrespect of my professional career that I got no notice, no collaboration, that Mike Ryan told me that Chris Cote had been let go. I would have loved to work something out, if anybody had told me, to protect him. Anybody who knows what we do around here understands that we are family. A dysfunctional pirate ship / clown car that shouldn't exist in this machine."

Le Batard said that he understands the show, let alone Cote, is a rounding error for the ESPN/Disney corporation, and that their show was less affected than other parts of the company.

As I wrote earlier this week, Dan Le Batard's time at ESPN is dwindling, whether that comes in about a year and a half when his contract expires or if the two sides explore a buyout earlier. If you listen to the podcast above, you will not come away from it thinking that he will be at the company long-term.

The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz was set to make its debut on ESPN+ (moving over from ESPNEWS) this past Monday, but the show had been off since the news of Cote's layoff. Upon its return, Le Batard walked through his 40 favorite colors in the first segment. In the second segment, he blandly read the NFL scores from this past week, a subversive nod to the idea that his bosses at ESPN want him to spend more time talking about football.

For his part, Chris Cote leaned into the surreal situation, dressing as Milton from Office Space, carrying a stapler, and making his background on the show's Zoom screen look like he had been relegated to the basement:

We shall see where this goes from here.