Executive Oversight for Outside the Lines Shifts at ESPN

Executive-level oversight of Outside the Lines has shifted at ESPN from Rob King to Norby Williamson, ESPN announced in an internal memo last week. The structure is such that Andy Tennant remains executive producer of both OTL and E:60; E:60 continues to report into King’s broader news department while Tennant now reports to Williamson and Stephanie Druley’s studio programming department for OTL.

In his Sports Business Journal media newsletter, John Ourand previously reported on the reorganization of King’s department in conjunction with the news that ESPN the Magazine would be shuttering its print edition later this year.

One of the reasons for the OTL shift is now its topic selection and discussion parameters can be better streamlined with ESPN’s other daily studio shows that Williamson oversees like Get Up, SportsCenter, and First Take.

A natural, but for our present purposes unanswerable, question is whether or to what extent this reorganization has any effect on when Bob Ley returns to ESPN; as The Big Lead first reported last week, Ley, who went on sabbatical from November 1st until what was supposed to be April 1st, extended his time away from the company indefinitely.