Mark Jones is leaving ESPN after 36 years, but he isn’t done.
Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald reports that Jones left by choice, that he simply felt it was time, and that ESPN told him he could have stayed if he wanted.
“Mark has made an enduring impact at ESPN since 1990, serving as a signature voice primarily within our NBA and college football coverage and across nearly all of our platforms,” the network said in a statement to Awful Announcing. “We’re grateful for Mark’s countless contributions, and we wish him continued success.”
Per the Sacramento Bee’s Jason Anderson, Jones told him he plans to stay on as the Kings’ play-by-play voice for “a long, long time,” though he wouldn’t commit to whether that means taking on a full-time role.
The seat has been Jones’ since November 2020, when he stepped in after Grant Napear resigned following a social media exchange with DeMarcus Cousins that ended a 32-year run. Napear had tweeted “All Lives Matter” when Cousins asked him on social media what he thought about the Black Lives Matter movement amid the nationwide protests following George Floyd’s death, and lost both the Kings gig and his Sacramento radio job within the same week. Jones, who had been outspoken throughout his career about the importance of Black play-by-play voices in sports, became the Kings’ primary voice that fall.
The Toronto native joined ESPN in 1990 after a stint at TSN in Canada, and spent the next three-and-a-half decades as one of the network’s most versatile voices, calling NBA, college football, men’s and women’s college basketball, WNBA, and NHL games across virtually every platform ESPN operates. His role had diminished in recent years as Dave Pasch and Ryan Ruocco moved up the depth chart, but Jones remained one of the more distinctive voices in the business, known for an expansive vocabulary and a wide range of cultural references.
“It’s been a memorable journey these decades with the ABC/ESPN family, but I have decided that it’s time to move on,” Jones wrote Friday. “From the day Dennis Swanson hired me in 1990 and working with the best producer in the business, Kim Belton, until today, I will forever be grateful for the many friends and colleagues along the way.”
ESPN will air a tribute during Sunday’s broadcast.
About Sam Neumann
Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.