What's It Like To Work At ESPN?

A view inside the Worldwide Leader (at one point in time).

I initially wrote this in ’15. Since ESPN has done rounds of layoffs since then, and I haven’t worked there in over a decade, I am sure it’s different. But some of you may find it vaguely interesting, so here goes.

This May (’15), I’ll have been out of college for 12 years. I worked for ESPN for six of those years. To date, it’s the longest-tenured place I’ve ever worked. I haven’t worked there since February 2011, but I still get tons of questions all the time about working there, how to work there, and other associated topics of the like. I was walking to my car last night and thought to myself, “Damn, someday I should write a blog post about that.” Well, here goes.

How do you get a job there?

Obviously there are about 10,000 ways in the door at any large organization; if you’re entering ESPN on the production side, which can often lead to other jobs in other divisions ultimately, probably the easiest way is the PA Trainee Program. There’s a bit of context about it on their Careers page, and a little more in this article. I’m sure the program has changed/evolved over time, but the basic deal is this: you chase someone (it was Fred Brown / Al Jaffe) for interviews, and ideally you get one. You come in and talk about sports with someone, typically Brown. The questions are fairly generic, although you do need to know about sports. A lot will revolve around “How are the Orioles going to do this year?” or “What do you think of the Clippers?” You need to toss out player names and contextual knowledge of the team, their rivals, the state of the landscape in their division, etc. I had a friend who did his interview and got asked to name 5–10 Heisman Trophy winners. It can run the gamut.

If you get into the program, you work for six months at a pretty low rate of pay (although it is central CT, so it’s not that expensive). There’s a ton of churn — 4–6 new people start every Monday. You have a couple of core responsibilities: