ESPN

ESPN Does Not Have A “Frat-Boy Culture,” Says Man In Suit

Today, ESPN held its annual upfront in New York. In case you don’t know what an upfront is, it’s where a TV network has a bunch of their recognizable faces announce new shows for major advertisers and important press people. Hopefully, the advertisers will be impressed and buy ads, and the press people will be wowed and write nice things.

At the ESPN’s show, which was hosted by Michelle Beadle and Scott Van Pelt, new shows were officially announced, cool new in-game features were revealed, and a preview for a new slate of 30 for 30 documentaries was shown.

There was also a little bit of preemptive PR maneuvering from executive vice president of content John Skipper:

“I can tell you categorically: we do not have a frat-boy culture. We do not condone that kind of activity. In fact, we’ve taken lots and lots of steps to create policies. We’re fairly stringent when people do things. We suspend people. We fire people,” Skipper told reporters after the event. “It is clear to everybody who works for us we are not going to tolerate it. It’s just human nature, human behavior…We have a culture of hard work and achievement and serving fans. We have a lot of employees. A few of them, every now and then, do something stupid.”

If you’re wondering why an ESPN executive felt the need to address his company’s behavioral issues, it’s because this happened recently, this book comes out next week, and people, in general, like to believe that ESPN, like any hugely important media entity, is a hotbed of off-camera backstabbing and inter-office romances.

The release of Those Guys Have All the Fun will likely add to this mystique, so ESPN has (smartly) gotten out ahead of the locomotive of attention that will result from the book hitting shelves.