I have a friend and a relative who worked for ESPN out of college and they both absolutely hated it. Unless you were on-air talent, you got treated like ****. Very long days, small paychecks, and horrible treatment from management was the norm. I guess ESPN can kind of afford to treat their staff that way. I mean, I'm sure as long as there are people who love sports, there will be people who want to work at "The Worldwide Leader."
The most depressing account that I've read so far is the destruction of ABC Sports by Disney (e.g. Michael Eisner and Bob Iger) and ESPN. Basically, when Disney came into the picture, they for the longest time wanted to great rid of the ABC Sports brand but couldn't do so immediately due to union issues. Worst of all, anybody who had worked at ABC Sports, had to move to Bristol if they wanted to remain employed. Even so, the ABC people had their roles greatly diminished. The feeling was that ESPN always felt like the ugly stepsister to the ABC Sports. Thus, when it came time in which ESPN and its "bureaucracy" (when compared to the more low key and efficient ABC Sports crew) was in a position of greater power, they didn't waste any time to jump all over it.
There's also a lengthy account about how ESPN and Disney pretty much "cut off their noses despite their faces" in regards to the NFL TV rights (which took
Monday Night Football off of ABC in favor of ESPN). To make a long story short, ESPN paid $1 billion for
MNF (after Bob Iger offered $1 billion for the Sunday rights and $500 million for the Monday rights) even though they had no flex scheduling, playoffs, and no guarantee that the defending Super Bowl champion (one of the reasons why Al Michaels decided to leave for NBC, besides the fact that the producer and director whom he had been working with on
MNF up to that point, weren't going to be retained due to not being truly "ESPN guys") would be on the schedule. Michael Eisner (who at the time, had been ruining Disney into the ground to the point in which Walt Disney's nephew, Roy started a campaign to get rid of Eisner) firmly felt that he didn't want ABC to have the NFL anymore since they were losing $150 million and they were well off already with shows like
Desperate Housewives,
Dancing with the Stars, and
Grey's Anatomy (ironically, shows that appeal more towards women).