Many have wondered why ESPN had not named a new host for their iconic show Sports Reporters show after the passing of John Saunders. The answer has been revealed as ESPN has announced they are replacing the show.
Bob Ley and Jeremy Schaap, two of the most respected and decorated voices in sports journalism, will take on larger roles as ESPN enhances its commitment to Outside the Lines and E:60, beginning this May. Ley will continue to lead the hard-hitting, issue-oriented Outside the Lines, with a year-round home on ESPN at 1 p.m. ET, Monday through Friday.
He will also join Schaap on Sunday mornings at 9 a.m. on a new weekly edition of E:60, which will also feature stories from the Outside the Lines team. Bringing viewers up close and personal with the biggest names and the most important stories in sports, the all-new live E:60 will feature an expanded team of journalists and more of the storytelling that has been its trademark.
“ESPN has always been distinguished by its unforgettable news reporting and storytelling,” said ESPN Senior Vice President, SportsCenter and News Rob King. “And now we have a new, wonderful story to tell: a renewed commitment to the growth of the award-winning Outside the Lines and E:60 brands. It’s both a joy and a privilege to announce that Bob Ley, Jeremy Schaap and our entire community of enterprise journalists will enjoy even more opportunities to inform, enthrall and delight our audiences.”
The new Outside the Lines will feature a whole new look and all-new formats, with a brand-new set housed in ESPN’s state of the art Digital Center 2, also home to all SportsCenter and NFL studio shows. The studio will be utilized by both Outside the Lines and E:60 and marks the first time they’ve had their own, dedicated space. Outside the Lines will also take its show on the road, originating from some of the top sporting and news events throughout the year.
Additionally, Outside the Lines’ will continue its primetime specials, similar to September’s “Hazing: The Hidden Horror” and the upcoming “Football Forever?” episode slated for Super Bowl Eve. Similarly, throughout the year E:60 will continue to air primetime episodes and specials.
Outside the Lines launched as a monthly primetime news show in May of 1990 with Ley at the anchor desk and 10 years later added a Sunday show, before going daily in 2003. Over more than a quarter century, the show and Ley have been recognized with 11 Sports Emmy Awards while traveling to all corners of the earth to pursue the most important, and sometimes controversial, stories in sports. Outside the Lines is known for its impact journalism, with recent examples including being the first news outlet to air interviews with sexual-assault victims at Baylor, which ended up ousting its president, athletic director and football coach and a series of reports that have seen increased protections for sexual-assault victims implemented nationwide.
E:60, which will celebrate its 10th anniversary in October and has been widely honored for its incisive storytelling and groundbreaking journalism, will now be seen 52 weeks per year in a consistent time slot. The show has received 11 Emmy Awards, 55 Sports Emmy nominations, seven Edward R. Murrow awards and the RFK Journalism Award, among many other honors.
An eight-time Emmy Award winner, Ley is ESPN’s longest-serving commentator, joining the network as a SportsCenter anchor on its third day of operation (September 9, 1979). In addition to the honors mentioned earlier, Ley and Outside the Lines have also received a duPont Award and Peabody Award, as well as multiple Edward R. Murrow Awards.
An 11-time Emmy Award winner, Schaap has been with the company since 1994. In 2015, he won the prestigious Robert F. Kennedy Award for reporting on human rights and social justice issues, a first for ESPN. Over the years, Schaap has frequently been honored for his reporting on such issues, which over the last decade has taken him all over the world and resulted in 11 Emmy nominations in the best journalism category. In 2015, Schaap’s story on a victim of domestic violence became the first ESPN story to be nominated for a News and Documentary Emmy Award. In 2010, he was honored by the United Nations with a special commendation for a report bringing attention to so-called corrective rape and its victims in South Africa. In 2006, he received the Dick Schaap Sports Emmy Award for best writing, for a story on Bobby Fischer. The author of Cinderella Man, a New York Times bestseller, and Triumph, a biography of Jesse Owens, he has been part of the E:60 team since its inception and will continue to report stories for the show, in addition to his hosting role.
In just the last few years, E:60 has been honored for its groundbreaking reporting on subjects ranging from corruption at FIFA, to the toxicity of playing fields in Bhopal, India, to the plight of migrant workers in Qatar, to the safety of artificial soccer fields. This spring it won the Sports Emmy Award for outstanding sports news anthology.
Over the years, Ley and Schaap have co-anchored coverage of important events such as the terrorist attacks at the Boston Marathon, the 2015 FIFA presidential election and the death of Muhammad Ali.
As a result of the new Sunday E:60 commitment, ESPN’s The Sports Reporters will air a special episode on May 7. The program, which debuted in 1988, established an enduring legacy for thoughtful, diverse points of views, something that permeates throughout current-day sports media across many entities, including ESPN. Additionally, the Sunday edition of Outside the Lines will no longer air after May 7 to allow for Ley to focus on the daily series, specials and his contributions to the weekly E:60.
“Sunday mornings may look, feel and sound different than they have for the past 29 years,” King said. “But we’ll always be warmly indebted to the brilliant, thoughtful, fearless men and women who graced the set of The Sports Reporters and enlightened fans everywhere.”
Additional details to follow in the coming weeks.