Mark Jones is leaving ESPN after 36 years, but he isn\u2019t done.<\/p>\n
Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald reports<\/a> that Jones left by choice, that he simply felt it was time, and that ESPN told him he could have stayed if he wanted.<\/p>\n \u201cMark 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,\u201d the network said in a statement to Awful Announcing. \u201cWe\u2019re grateful for Mark\u2019s countless contributions, and we wish him continued success.\u201d<\/p>\n Per the Sacramento Bee\u2019s Jason Anderson<\/a>, Jones told him he plans to stay on as the Kings\u2019 play-by-play voice for \u201ca long, long time,\u201d though he wouldn\u2019t commit to whether that means taking on a full-time role.<\/p>\n The seat has been Jones\u2019 since November 2020, when he stepped in<\/a> after Grant Napear resigned<\/a> following a social media exchange with DeMarcus Cousins that ended a 32-year run. Napear had tweeted \u201cAll Lives Matter\u201d when Cousins asked him on social media what he thought about the Black Lives Matter movement amid the nationwide protests following George Floyd\u2019s 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<\/a> in sports, became the Kings\u2019 primary voice that fall.<\/p>\n 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\u2019s most versatile voices, calling NBA, college football, men\u2019s and women\u2019s college basketball, WNBA, and NHL games across virtually every platform ESPN operates.\u00a0His role had diminished in recent years as Dave Pasch<\/a> and Ryan Ruocco<\/a> moved up the depth chart, but Jones remained one of the more distinctive voices in the business, known for an expansive vocabulary<\/a> and\u00a0a wide range of cultural references<\/a>.<\/p>\n