Disney Eliminates Hundreds More Positions as Restructuring Continues Into Summer 2026

At some point, the word “restructuring” stops feeling like a strategy and starts feeling like a pattern. Disney is cutting hundreds more positions across the company, per a report from The Hollywood Reporter, and what makes this one different from the previous rounds isn’t the size. It is the timing. This is the third round of layoffs in 2026, and the year is barely past its halfway point.

Here is where the cuts are landing and what the full picture looks like when all three rounds get stacked together.

What Is Being Cut at Disney This Time

The latest round is hitting corporate functions, ESPN, Disney Entertainment Television, and the company’s film studios. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Pixar is expected to see the largest number of cuts among the studio divisions, and National Geographic is said to be the hardest-hit brand within Disney Entertainment Television. Employees reportedly began receiving notifications Tuesday morning.

The ESPN side carries the highest-profile names. Longtime SportsCenter anchor and Baseball Tonight host Karl Ravech and NFL analyst Ryan Clark are among those affected, according to the report. Most of the ESPN cuts are tied to the company’s acquisition of NFL Network assets earlier this year, as Disney works through the organizational redundancies that came with that deal. ESPN Chairman Jimmy Pitaro addressed employees in an internal memo, describing the process as an evaluation of teams and resources following the acquisition, and acknowledging that difficult decisions about job impacts would follow.

Disney has not confirmed the total number of positions affected or issued a public statement as of Tuesday’s notifications.

The Disney Context That Makes This Hit Differently

The current round cannot be understood without the previous two.

Earlier in 2026, Disney began consolidating marketing teams under Chief Brand Officer Asad Ayaz, which resulted in the first wave of position eliminations. Then, in April, CEO Josh D’Amaro confirmed approximately 1,000 employees were affected by a company-wide restructuring. That announcement came with an internal memo addressed to cast members, in which D’Amaro described the eliminations as a response to the need for a more agile and technologically-enabled workforce. He acknowledged the difficulty of the moment and said the decisions were not a reflection of the contributions of those impacted, but rather a reflection of the company’s ongoing evaluation of how to manage its resources more effectively.

This week’s cuts are reportedly smaller than April’s 1,000. But smaller is relative when three rounds are now on the board in the same calendar year, covering marketing, corporate operations, ESPN, film studios, and entertainment television.

The Broader Frame

Disney is calling all of this part of its “One Disney” strategy, the restructuring initiative led by D’Amaro since taking over as CEO in March. The strategy centers on building a leaner, more unified organization across the company’s various businesses, and each layoff round has been framed as a component of that longer work.

The entertainment industry context matters too. Streaming has reshaped the economics of every major studio, ESPN has been navigating a sports rights landscape in constant flux, and the NFL Network acquisition created real organizational complexity that requires resolution. The layoffs are a response to all of that, not just an internal efficiency exercise.

What is harder to frame as a strategy is the human side. Hundreds of people received notifications Tuesday morning. Some of them work in jobs the public never sees. Some of them, like Ravech and Clark at ESPN, are names that viewers associate with years of daily sports coverage.

Disney has not yet released an official count or a public comment on the latest round. The Hollywood Reporter’s reporting is where the details currently live, and updates are expected as the day continues.

Three rounds down in 2026. Whether there are more ahead is an open question Disney has not answered.