had been terminated, among them athletes-turned-analysts Trent Dilfer and Danny Kanell, and noted journalists like NFL beat reporter Ed Werder and Major League Baseball expert Jayson Stark. The layoffs come as ESPN continues to shed viewers, more than 10 million over a period of several years, while forking over big money for the broadcast rights to such properties as the NFL, NBA and College Football Playoff. Further cost-cutting measures taken include moving the studio operations of ESPNU to Bristol from Charlotte, North Carolina, reducing its longtime MLB studio show Baseball Tonight to Sundays as a lead-in to the primetime game and adding the MLB Network-produced Intentional Talk to ESPN2's daily lineup. 2020–present On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the COVID-19 outbreak to be a pandemic. This declaration, along with sporting leagues having their players test positive for the disease, resulted in cancellations to almost all traditional sporting events globally over the next few weeks in the most severe disruption to the sporting calendar since World War II. Due to these circumstances, ESPN announced that it would undergo major changes to its programming schedule, opting to show replays of classic sporting events, sports documentaries, and expanded news programs. After having last carried national-televised NHL games in 2004, ESPN and ABC agreed on a seven-year contract (agreed on March 10, 2021) to televise games, and will also air some games on ESPN+ and Hulu. The contract also stated that ABC will exclusively air four of the seven Stanley Cup Finals, marking the first time that the entirety of the Finals would air on broadcast television exclusively since 1980. A week later, ESPN and the NFL agreed on a landmark ten-year contract (agreed on March 18, 2021) to continue televising Monday Night Football, and will also air games on ABC and ESPN+. Terms of this deal include: expanding the MNF schedule to 23 games, but ESPN will phase it into three steps. The schedule will expand from 17 games to 19 games in 2021, the last year of ESPN’s current eight-year agreement, to include two games during the final week of the season, as part of a new Saturday doubleheader to kick off the new Week 18 (both will have playoff implications and will be simulcast on ESPN and ABC). In 2022, which will be a bridge agreement year, the schedule expands to 21 games, to include two more