Award-winning senior news correspondent Jeremy Schaap, one of ESPN’s most distinguished and versatile commentators, has reached a new long-term extension to remain with the company, it was announced by John Wildhack, ESPN executive vice president, production and programming. Schaap is currently reporting from the Special Olympics World Games in Los Angeles.
Schaap, who joined ESPN full-time in 1994, will continue to serve as a correspondent for ESPN’s award-winning, prime-time newsmagazine E:60. A new one-hour branded show titled E:60Reports with Jeremy Schaap debuted this May with an investigation of Sepp Blatter and FIFA. Two weeks later, the U.S. Justice Department announced that it had indicted more than a dozen soccer executives and several of FIFA’s highest-ranking officials were arrested in Switzerland. On June 2, Blatter held a press conference to announce that he would be stepping down.
In addition, Schaap will continue to host ESPN Radio’s The Sporting Life and contribute to Outside the Lines, SportsCenter, NFL Countdown and College GameDay, among other ESPN platforms. He will also continue to cover select live events, including the FIFA World Cup, and to lead ESPN’s coverage at the Olympics.
“ESPN has been my home for more than 20 years,” said Schaap, “and before that my father Dick Schaap did so much remarkable work here. I couldn’t be more pleased to know that my colleagues – so many of whom are like family – are stuck with me for many more years.
“At ESPN, I have been afforded the opportunity to develop as a journalist and a broadcaster and it’s my hope that I will continue to do so. I have been privileged to work somewhere that cares about reporting, storytelling and fairness, where tremendous resources are dedicated to the important pursuit of journalism.”
He added: “At ESPN, and in particular for the last eight years at E:60, I have been encouraged to pursue stories that transcend sports, that sometimes are only tangentially about sports, but that speak to larger issues. I will continue to seek out those kinds of stories, working with the best producers, editors and camera crews on the planet—and that’s all anyone in this business can ask for.”
Wildhack said, “Jeremy is a trusted and respected voice in our industry and with fans. His commitment to journalistic excellence as a reporter and storyteller is unparalleled, and we are thrilled to have him continue to play such an integral role across many ESPN platforms, including his outstanding award-winning work on E:60.”
Schaap has won nine national Sports Emmy Awards and many other honors for his work, including two national Edward R. Murrow Awards, in 2012 and 2014, and a National Headliner Award, in 2007.
This year, Schaap was awarded the prestigious Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award for human rights reporting–a first for ESPN–for his E:60 investigation, “Qatar’s World Cup,” which shined a light on the deplorable living and working conditions for foreign laborers in Qatar. Last week, in another first for ESPN, he was nominated for a national News and Documentary Emmy Award, for an E:60 story about a survivor of domestic violence.
Schaap’s father Dick Schaap began working at ESPN in 1988 hosting The Sports Reporters, and in later years he also hosted Schaap One on One and, with Jeremy, The Sporting Life. He worked at ESPN until his passing in 2001.
Credit to ESPN Media Zone who originally published this article
