At ESPN, John Skipper Resigns as President, Citing Substance Addiction

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In an unexpected announcement that will reverberate across the sports media landscape, John Skipper, the president of ESPN, announced his resignation on Monday. Skipper, who has been president of the company since 2012, recently signed a contract extension through 2021.

In ESPN’s announcement of the resignation, Skipper, who turns 62 on Tuesday, disclosed that he has a “substance addiction,” and that “the most important thing I can do right now is to take care of my problem.”

“I come to this public disclosure with embarrassment, trepidation and a feeling of having let others I care about down,” he said.

ESPN said George Bodenheimer, a former ESPN president who has also served as its executive chairman, would serve as its acting chairman for 90 days, after which a permanent president would presumably be named.

Besides recently signing an extension, Skipper was very visible up until his resignation. Last weekend, he attended the company’s telecasts of the Heisman Trophy ceremony and the Lomachenko-Rigondeaux fight. Last week, he was the keynote speaker at the Sports Video Group Summit, and led a meeting at the company’s Bristol, Conn., campus for 450 of its most prominent camera-facing talent.

Many of those prominent on-air ESPN employees were shocked at Skipper’s resignation, expressing their appreciation for the support he gave their careers. “This person has created everything that exists here at ESPN for us,” Dan Le Batard said on his radio show, tearing up as he announced the news to his audience.

“John Skipper is one of the finest people I’ve ever worked for,” Jemele Hill, who was suspended by Skipper earlier this year, wrote on Twitter.

The last six months have been perhaps the most trying time of Skipper’s almost five years in charge of the company. The amount of people who subscribe to cable packages including ESPN has continued to decline, leading to two painful rounds of layoffs. A number of controversies have erupted around social media use by the company’s employees, and it canceled a partnership with Barstool Sports after just one episode of their collaboration aired.

Last week, The Boston Globe reported on a hostile work environment for women at ESPN.

There is no obvious successor for Skipper, who has overseen multiple executive shake-ups over the last year. Possible successors inside the company include Connor Schell, head of content; Justin Connolly, head of sales and marketing; and Burke Magnus, head of programming.

The next president will face a host of immediate challenges, as ESPN attempts to continue making money from its traditional — but declining — television business, while also preparing for its digital future.

In the spring, the company will launch ESPN Plus, a digital streaming service it hopes will attract those who don’t subscribe to a television package. But while ESPN touts that ESPN Plus will stream more than 10,000 live events, it won’t include games shown on ESPN or ESPN2, meaning it will not have the games ESPN considers most attractive.

Disney, which owns ESPN, announced this week that it had reached an agreement to purchase most of 21st Century Fox’s assets, including its 21 regional sports networks. ESPN’s next president will have to integrate those networks and their thousands of employees into the broader ESPN kingdom, as well as figure out how they fit into ESPN and Disney’s broader strategy.