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ESPN
3.6 of 5 140 reviews
Bristol, CT 1000 to 5000 Employees
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ESPN Reviews

78% of employees recommend this company to a friend
ESPN President John Skipper

97% Approve of the CEO

John Skipper

31 ratings
140 employee reviews
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Updated May 21, 2013

Great company

Former

Pros – The company lives up to the title as the Worldwide Leader in Sports. Also, the company is innovative, Industry leader, supports career growth.

Cons – The company and management can be elitist, arrogant and under pay employees.

Advice to Senior Management – Train and promote more employees from within organization.

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Work hard. Big rewards.

Current

Pros – Constant growth. Opportunities for achievers. Environment pays for performance.

Cons – Competitive. Can be cut-throat. Bristol, CT is not a fun town.

Advice to Senior Management – Senior leadership needs more young blood.

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Educational and interesting.

Former

Pros – If sports is your passion, ESPN is the place to work.

Cons – The promotions are often based more upon seniority than job performance.

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It is a demanding but rewarding job.

Current

Pros – Name recognition
Around Sports
Making Great TV

Cons – Long Hours
Hectic Pace
Demanding production schedule

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Worldwide Leader in Dysfunction

Former

Pros – Great BRAND.
Direct Access to On-air Talent.
Sports All Day/All the Time.
Dominance in the Sports Media Industry.
Great Diversity, Campus, and Team Building Events.

Cons – Siloed and competing groups all doing the same thing.
Lack of consistent, cohesive Technology Processes and/or Standards across all divisions of the organization.
Promotions based on length of tenure versus quality of work output.

Advice to Senior Management – Like any large organization, your experience will be dependent on the group you end up in. My hope is that the "Worldwide Leader in Sports" consolidates their technology departments and moves towards a singular cohesive strategy for content delivery. They should also evaluate employees based on equitable, quantifiable, measurable standards versus subjective perceptions.

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It's great for experience, but always watch your back.

Former

Pros – Good entry-level pay.
Health insurance package.
Looks great on your resume.

Cons – Be extra careful - Management has a history of forcing people to resign before the end of their probation period.
Management will give you a bad performance review, and then refuse to let you see your own work records or any "official evidence".
Whenever your manager has verbal communication with you, via face-to-face or over-the-phone, make sure it is followed up with an email, because email is the only thing the company will officially recognize.
Also make personal copies of all emails concerning your work performance and contact with management.
If you are forced to resign, and have to file for unemployment, make sure you tell the dept of labor exactly what happened, especially when there has been no "official written record" of you being forced to resign.
Watch your back at all times.

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Fun dream job everyone wishes for as a kid

Current

Pros – Colleagues, Work Place, Sports, Work on something you love, Work with others who share the same love and interest as you

Cons – Not personally but some have tough hours such as 3 - 12 am but only con may be salary at beginning

Advice to Senior Management – None they did a perfect job keeping control of jobs and making sure there were opportunities for interns by interacting with them.

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Interesting. There have been great advances, yet there are many areas that have to innovate.

Current

Pros – People, leading broadcaster regionally, ability to lead great teams.

Cons – Need to invest in staying an industry leader in broadcast technology.

Advice to Senior Management – Lead, do not follow when it comes to business and industry innovation.

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A "Sweat Shop" environment and rampant nepotism

Former

Pros – The technology, some of the worker-level employees are great people. If you're a sports fan there's monitors showing sports in a lot of places about the workplace. The technical people are great.

Cons – They demand a 12 hour workday of everyone who is salaried: from the lowest paid admins to the managers. Very high turnover as people are misled when hired and told the long hours are "just temporary". Some of the managers are verbally abusive, others are hiring their friends and relatives regardless of competency: relatives with no skills for a particular job will get promoted over highly skilled employees. Very bad place to work.

Advice to Senior Management – Start treating your employees with simple human respect, allow for a reasonable work/life balance, fire the half of management that promotes bad practices.

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More turnover than expected

Former

Pros – It's ESPN -- name recognition and strong brand. Disney-owned.

Cons – Siloed, too many departments doing similar work. Little work-life balance. Is more bureaucratic than necessary.Too many VPs. Takes a long time to get anything done that needs approval.

Advice to Senior Management – Need better organizational structure and processes to ensure employee efficiency and effectiveness.

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