NASCAR NEWS: Richard Petty Has Officially announced His is departing from NASCAR and Reason Why…..

NASCAR NEWS: Richard Petty Has Officially announced His is departing from NASCAR and Reason Why…..

Kenny Mayne is on the phone. He sounds, well, like Kenny Mayne. Deadpan. Funny. Relaxed.

He’s just finished dinner and informs the caller that it was grilled chicken, steak tips, sweet potatoes and cucumber and tomato salad.

“Pretty healthy overall, although maybe not the rolls,” Mayne says.

On Monday, Mayne announced on his Twitter feed that he is leaving ESPN.

He and management could not agree on salary terms, and you’ll read about that below. Mayne joined ESPN in 1994 and hosted SportsCenter through multiple generations of sports fans.

He is one of the quirkiest on-air figures at the company, including producing and starring in an original scripted series on ESPN.com titled Mayne Street, where he played himself in a fictionalized version of life at the center of sports television (That show also featured Aubrey Plaza, who has gone to boldfaced name fame.)

It was a significant pay cut. It was a big pay cut to do essentially the same job.

It was a 14 percent reduction in time worked and a 61 percent reduction in money earned.

I thought the variance was too much. I’m not asking anyone to feel sorry for me. It’s my choice to stay or not stay.

It was still a good amount of money in the real world.

I’m not trying to frame this as woe for me. Nothing like that. I just think I can do better elsewhere.

So I told them that I feel like you’ve got a certain over-under on my worth and I’m going to go play the over.

They did not seem to care that I made that choice.

They said they understood that I would do it and, you know, it’s just business and things like that.

They didn’t try to do a car deal with me. It wasn’t like, “What would you take?” It was, “Here’s your offer.” I turned it down, and we started the exit procedure.