Elle Duncan, a longtime SportsCenter host known for leading much of ESPN's women's basketball coverage, officially left the network last year.
The longtime ESPN host is departing the Worldwide Leader in Sports for Netflix. Her first Netflix assignment comes later this month, when "Free Solo" star Alex Honnold will attempt to scale the southeast corner of Taipei 101.
"Leaving when things are good is the hardest part. But growth rarely asks politely. Sometimes it whispers. Sometimes it nudges. And sometimes it tells you—clearly—that it’s time," she wrote of her exit.
"And I’m listening. So thank you, ESPN, for the dream, the trust, and the space to become. I hope I served you well. I’ll carry this place with me—always."
But why is Duncan leaving ESPN?
Her longtime agent, Matt Olson, explained the reasoning behind her departure in an interview with Sports Business Journal.
Elle Duncan's agent opens up
Olson said that it mostly came down to opportunity and time.
“While Elle had No. 1 women’s sports roles which she was exceedingly passionate about and loved doing, if you look at the other premium sports at ESPN, those slots were filled by people,” Olson said. “So what does Netflix have? The ability for her to be the number one there. Now, what was the push from the ESPN side? Well, this applies to every single person that works at ESPN outside of Joe [Buck] and Troy [Aikman]. You have to work 200 days a year. That is the nature of that beast.
“The Netflix offer and the ESPN offer were very competitive with each other, but what wasn’t competitive was Elle’s time, the schedule that she’d be able to work for Netflix, and also the flexibility that Netflix would allow her to work at other places.”
It'll be interesting to see what her role is at Netflix moving forward.