ESPN laid off Chris Cote, a producer on the Dan Le Batard show, last week. Dan announced on the show today that Chris will stick around and that Dan is paying his salary + a raise.

"We were blindsided by him being let go. It’s the greatest disrespect of my professional career that I got no notice, no collaboration.”

“We as a group are just something that somebody can lop off a head, it is just a number on the page, it is not anything human. Corporations don’t tend to be human, and if somebody had talked to me I would’ve pleaded on the idea of humanity.”

This came after Le Batard Show fans flooded ESPN’s various support channels for days expressing their disappointment with the layoff: https://www.reddit.com/r/DanLeBatardShow/comments/jrbwkf/lets_continue_to_flood_their_inbox_simply_google/

Dan also joked (?) about the show simultcast moving from ESPNews to ESPN+ on Monday — a debut they missed — meaning ESPN execs won’t even know this happened.

"It seems like the moves they make, make it feel like they are trying to shrink us, but it continues to grow.”