Olbermann Reportedly Seeking Return To ESPN But They Aren’t ‘Prepared To Bring Him Back’

According to a New York Times report, controversial cable news host Keith Olbermann is eying a return to television via ESPN, his employer from 1992 until 1997.

The Times reports that just as he is in the midst of a lawsuit with former employer Current TV, Olbermann is seeking to return to ESPN, the sports news network that made him famous.

The former MSNBC host reportedly dined with ESPN president John Skipper at the Four Seasons Restaurant in NYC. “Keith Olbermann, both personally and through a couple people I know, reached out to say, ‘Gee, I would love to have dinner,’ ” Skipper said of their discussions. “I agreed to dinner with Keith because I assumed he’d be provocative and witty and fun to have dinner with, and he was indeed lots of fun. We talked sports and politics, and we had a nice chat. He is very interesting.

Skipper added that it was “clear” that Olbermann was seeking an “entry point” for return.

While Olbermann declined to tell the Times any details of the dinner, he said that he “had the privilege to spend some time with John Skipper,” adding that “[h]is vision and charm were readily apparent, and judging by his leadership, his family name was prophetic.”

Senior executives at ESPN told the newspaper that since the dinner, Olbermann’s reps have sought to get him an opportunity with the network that employed him during the mid-’90s. During his tenure at the sports network, Olbermann hosted SportsCenter with Dan Patrick before a brief move to ESPN2 and later to his progressive political talk show at MSNBC.

As with most places that have employed Olbermann, some ESPN’ers were glad to see him leave, the Times reports, because “he managed to alienate a sizable group in the company, who found him exasperating to work with.”

As for whether a return to ESPN is likely, Skipper told the paper: “After the dinner, at that point, there was no real appropriate place for Keith to come back, nor did I feel like I was prepared to bring him back.”

“We don’t have a policy that says we won’t bring somebody back. We’re running a great business, and when we think we can get quality content, there’s no such thing as a condemned list,” he explained, adding that ESPN is “not an easy place to get back into” because of how quickly departures are replaced with new talent.