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Before there was a Joy Taylor, a Malika Andrews or a Molly Qerim, it was Michelle Beadle who was sports talk show host that stole the headlines.
Beadle began her career at ESPN in 2009 as a co-host of the show SportsNation alongside Colin Cowherd.
And from there, her popularity skyrocketed.
Beadle later left the mothership to work for NBC before returning in 2014. She then became an NBA Countdown host in 2016 before becoming one of the first hosts of Get Up! alongside Jalen Rose and Mike Greenberg.
These days, Beadle works as part of the San Antonio Spurs broadcast team.
But even now, she still has opinions on what goes on over at ESPN. And the one-time network star is not happy at all about the changes to NBA Countdown.
ESPN laid off one of the show’s hosts, Jalen Rose, as part of major cuts in recent months.
The network has also repeatedly changed the show’s personnel in recent years, which Beadle claims has hurt the product.
“That position and that show has never been allowed to marinate and it’s sort of why you continue to see change,” Beadle told Front Office Sports. “It’s unfortunate and it’s why TNT dominates because they’re allowed to marinate for decades and the product gets better with year after year. So that’s my simple take on what I observed while I was there [at ESPN].”
She also stated that she, as well as many others, have struggled to make sense of the layoffs.
“It sucks when layoffs happen. It’s a tough conversation that people try to have. I know everyone thinks they understand why these things happen, but I don’t think anybody truly gets it,” Beadle said.
Beadle is far from alone in those sentiments. Though we can certainly think of one reason why the network may have decided to cut back.