Keith Olbermann Announces He's Leaving ESPN to Return to Political Commentary

Keith Olbermann has announced his departure from ESPN. He will go back to delivering political commentary on a new YouTube show beginning on Wednesday. Olbermann made the announcement on Twitter Tuesday evening, the video is below:

Olbermann was in the middle of his third stint at ESPN, having returned to the network in 2018 and working in various capacities. He began hosting SportsCenter again in May of 2018 and occasionally called Major League Baseball games as well. He claims this time he is leaving on great terms with ESPN. That's nothing like his first departure which was contentious and involved a long running feud with the network.

He did political commentary on MSNBC for years, with his show Countdown with Keith Olbermann beginning on March 31, 2003 and running until January 21, 2011. He has done political commentary work for various outlets since, including a stint with GQ as a special correspondent for the web series The Closer with Keith Olbermann in 2016. That show morphed into The Resistance and ran for 147 episodes and garnered hundreds of millions of views on YouTube and Facebook.

Olbermann has never been shy about his political opinions and ESPN's higher-ups have been adamant about keeping those opinions far from the network's sports coverage. This feels like a natural move for the veteran broadcaster given how contentious things have gotten in the country. He likely has a lot he wants to say that he simply couldn't at ESPN.

It's worth noting Olbermann left the door open for returns for ESPN anniversaries or specials. So this may not be the last we've seen of him at the four-letter.

Olbermann's new show will be titled The Worst Person in the World and will debut on his YouTube channel at 5 p.m. ET on Wednesday.