Linda Cohn, ESPN’s longest-tenured anchor, retiring from network

Linda Cohn, who joined ESPN’s SportsCenter more than three decades ago, will retire from the network at the end of the month. She has anchored more editions of SportsCenter than anyone else in ESPN’s history.

Cohn, 66, is originally from New York. She joined ESPN in 1992, leaving KIRO where she was a weekend sports anchor and full-time reporter. She had a three-year stint in Seattle from 1989 to 1992, where she covered everything from high school sports to the Sonics. In 2024, she returned to join the Kraken Hockey Network for more than a dozen games while also maintaining her full-time status at ESPN.

“Seattle is still amazing to me,” Cohn told The Seattle Times in 2024. “I got to cover several Kraken games two years ago during their great run into the postseason, covered a couple playoff games as well. The people remembered me, and I just felt like it was home.”

Ultimately, Cohn’s appearance on the Kraken Hockey Network was a one-season gig. In December, a representative said it was possible she would do more work with the hockey network in the future.

Cohn’s final SportsCenter appearance will be during the 6 p.m., 10 p.m. and 11 p.m. editions of the program on June 26. A news release from the network described Cohn’s departure as “retiring from ESPN.”

She celebrated her 5,000th SportsCenter appearance in February of 2016, and ESPN estimated that she has anchored an additional 650 editions over the past decade. Cohn has been with the network for a total of 34 years.

“What I’m most proud of is that my career lasted long enough for me to see little girls grow up watching SportsCenter, enter this business, and succeed in it,” Cohn said in the ESPN press release announcing her departure. “If my journey helped make that path a little easier for them, then that’s the achievement I’ll cherish most.”

Cohn has won multiple Emmy Awards and was inducted into the National Sports Media Association Hall of Fame in 2017.