Deadline: ESPN Considering CNN's Jeff Zucker as New President

CNN president Jeff Zucker is being considered a candidate to lead ESPN, Deadline.com reports, citing multiple sources close to the news network's boss.

Zucker's CNN contract reportedly expires at the end of this year, according to Deadline's Nellie Andreeva. Zucker has led an online expansion of the network's reach but he has struggled to improve declining TV ratings amid President Donald Trump's rise to the White House and frequent attacks of "fake news" CNN, which the president had previous called the "Clinton News Network."

"Zucker is said to love his current post and does not want it to appear he's lost the standoff with Trump, but a source noted that he always has wanted to do something in sports, and ESPN is an enormous job — bigger than CNN — and an opportunity he may not be able to pass up," Andreeva wrote.

ESPN has struggled in recent years, too, and is searching for a new president after John Skipper resigned in December to deal with substance abuse. Past ESPN president George Bodenheimer is currently filling in for Skipper's absence on an interim basis for 90 days during the search for a full-time replacement.

Among the rumored candidates to lead Disney's ESPN, according to Deadline, include: ESPN EVPs Connor Schell and Justin Connolly, and Consumer Products and Interactive Media Chairman James Picaro, and Turner Broadcasting president David Levy.

Andreeva writes Zucker's media career started as an NBC researcher for the 1988 Olympics and he has served a stint with Disney before.

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