Report: Former ESPN boss wants to hire Michelle Beadle, Katie Nolan

Michelle Beadle and Katie Nolan are both currently free agents after once holding prominent roles with ESPN, and it sounds like they each could have an opportunity to reunite with their former boss.

John Skipper was the president at ESPN when Beadle and Nolan enjoyed lucrative careers there. Skipper, who co-founded Meadowlark Media with Dan Le Batard after leaving ESPN, told Michael McCarthy of Front Office Sports on Thursday that he is open to discussing roles for Beadle and Nolan at his new company.

“Yes, I enjoyed working with them. Yes, I think they’re talented. Of course, Meadowlark would be interested,” Skipper said.

The model for Meadowlark is to give its content creators editorial freedom, and Skipper says the same would be offered to Beadle and Nolan. Jemele Hill, another former ESPN employee, now works for Meadowlark.

“At Meadowlark, we do want to recruit talented people,” Skipper added. “We’re prepared to recruit people — and give them editorial freedom — in what they say. We’re interested in people we think can range across a variety of genres. They both qualify for all that.”

Nolan confirmed this week that she has left ESPN after four years with the network. She hosted “Always Late” at ESPN and has a relationship with Le Batard from when she made appearances on his show, “Highly Questionable.” That show was canceled after Le Batard left ESPN.

Beadle left ESPN’s “Get Up!” roughly a year ago after she spoke out against the sport of football and expressed anger over former Ohio State coach Urban Meyer not being fired amid the Zach Smith scandal. She then became the host of “NBA Countdown” before reaching a buyout agreement with ESPN in 2019. There was talk that ESPN was upset with Beadle for not fulfilling her responsibilities off the air.

It sounds like Beadle is looking into a number of career opportunities. Nolan will likely do the same.