Disney is not done cutting, and the people finding out this morning are learning it the hardest way possible. Their jobs are gone.
The Walt Disney Company is eliminating hundreds more positions across multiple divisions, according to a report from The Hollywood Reporter. Employees began receiving notifications on Tuesday morning. The affected areas include corporate functions, ESPN, Disney Entertainment Television, and the company's film studios. Pixar is expected to absorb the largest number of studio cuts. National Geographic is said to be the hardest hit within Disney Entertainment Television. Disney has not confirmed the total number of positions affected and has not issued a public statement.
The Names That Make This One Personal
Most layoff rounds at a company the size of Disney get absorbed as corporate news. This one has faces attached. Longtime SportsCenter anchor and Baseball Tonight host Karl Ravech is among those impacted, per The Hollywood Reporter. NFL analyst Ryan Clark is as well. Both are fixtures for anyone who has spent time watching ESPN over the last decade. Both are apparently out. Most of the ESPN cuts trace back to the company's acquisition of NFL Network assets earlier this year. ESPN Chairman Jimmy Pitaro addressed employees in an internal memo acknowledging the difficulty of the decisions and committing to treating affected colleagues with compassion and respect. That phrase has now appeared in Disney's internal communications about layoffs more than once in 2026.
The Third Round This Year
Here is the number that reframes everything: three. This is the third round of layoffs Disney has executed in 2026. The first came when Disney merged marketing teams under Chief Brand Officer Asad Ayaz. The second landed in April, when CEO Josh D'Amaro confirmed approximately 1,000 employees were affected across the company. The current round is reportedly smaller than April's 1,000. That qualifier is doing considerable work in a year where the total keeps growing.
What Disney Is Calling It
The official framing is the One Disney restructuring strategy, tied to D'Amaro since he stepped into the CEO role in March. The pressures behind it are real: streaming has reshaped studio economics, ESPN has navigated rising sports rights costs for years, and the NFL Network acquisition introduced redundancies that required sorting. None of which makes Tuesday morning easier for the hundreds of employees finding out today that their positions are gone. Some of them, like Ravech and Clark, are people Disney audiences watched regularly without ever thinking about employment contracts.
Where Things Stand With These Jobs
Disney has not released an official count and has not commented publicly. Three rounds of layoffs this year, spanning marketing, corporate operations, ESPN, film studios, and entertainment television. The One Disney strategy has not been declared complete. Whether a fourth round follows is a question Disney has not answered. The count keeps moving.
