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Longtime SportsCenter Host Opens Up About Leaving ESPN

Originally posted on The Spun | By Andrew Gould | Last updated May 29, 2025 12:02 PM ET

Stan Verrett will become the latest ESPN mainstay to leave the company.

Last week, ESPN held its final SportsCenter from Los Angeles. Verrett later confirmed that he'll depart the network this summer after 25 years.

Verrett expanded on the forthcoming split in an interview with Awful Announcing's Michael Grant published Thursday.

"The L.A. studio was closing and so it just didn't make sense for me to go back to Bristol in terms of where my life is right now," Verrett said. "For me, it wasn't a career decision. It was a life decision. Even if there had been a renewal, that call for me to move back to Bristol, that's not something I was interested in. It was totally amicable.

"There's certainly no hard feelings on my end. I don't think there are on their end. I had built a life out here in LA. I wanted to continue living here. And that didn't work with what their future plans were."

Verrett called anchoring SportsCenter his "dream job." Despite the bittersweet emotions of signing off for one last time, he appreciated the "wonderful" final episode on May 20.

"There had never been a daily SportsCenter anywhere else but Bristol. And so we set out on the West Coast in 2009 and put this show together. We made it work," he said. "We did a lot of things that we're proud of. So, it was a celebration of that, the hard work, the creativity, and the professionalism of everybody."

In terms of ESPN halting its West Coast SportsCenter, Verrett compared himself to a jockey whose horse died. He's now looking for his new horse and has "some tentative plans" he's not at liberty to discuss yet.

"This is still really fresh. It's still really new," Verrett said. "I'm adjusting to it, playing a lot of golf. I’m in a position to retire if I choose to. That's part of the reason I'm so grateful for the time I've had at ESPN because it changed my life. I could walk away right now, and I'd be fine."

He expects to return to the airwaves in a new role "relatively soon."

"I still have things that I want to do," Verrett said. "I don't feel like what we do is anything laborious. My job has never been that way. It's always been something that I've enjoyed doing."

This article first appeared on The Spun and was syndicated with permission.

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