Network-hopping political and sports commentator Keith Olbermann is about to flex his leg muscles once again, with news coming today that ESPN won’t be continuing his ESPN2 show, Olbermann, after his contract expires at the end of July.
Olbermann, who got his first big break as a broadcaster 20 years—and a multitude of burnt bridges—ago on the network’s flagship program SportsCenter, returned to ESPN in 2013. That move, which occurred shortly after the fiery conclusion of his MSNBC (and later Current TV) political news program Countdown, apparently came after the resolution of a high-profile feud between ESPN and Olbermann that dated back to his initial departure from the network in 1997.
Cracks in the detente started to show earlier this year, though, when the network suspended Olbermann for getting in a Twitter fight with students from Penn State University. News about the cancellation of Olbermann was initially reported by sports news historian James Andrew Miller, who also reported that the network hopes to maintain an amicable relationship with the anchor, in what seems to be a dangerously rosy view of the Olbermannian mind.
There’s no word yet on where Olbermann will leap to next in his Frogger-esque trip across the great river of cable TV news, or which semi-truck of ill-planned bickering or rage will leave him inevitably splattered on the asphalt once again. We also don’t know when the final episode of Olbermann will air on ESPN2, although it’ll presumably happen some time before the end of the month.