Keith Olbermann back to ESPN?

President of ESPN John Skipper is hinting around that the notoriously difficult-to-manage Keith Olbermann could head back to the sports channel he once called home.

"I wasn't here when Keith was here, but he is very talented," Skipper told The Hollywood Reporter. "So I had dinner with Keith -- it was delightful and fun. And I would not have had dinner with him if we didn't sit around and think about whether there was a reason to bring Keith back. I haven't met with him again, but we don't have a policy here that you can never come back."

Skipper was singing a different tune back in March, however. He told the New York Times of the dinner then that "After the dinner, at that point, there was no real appropriate place for Keith to come back, nor did I feel like I was prepared to bring him back."

Olbermann worked with ESPN from 1992 to 1997, when he was seaid to have left on bad terms.

It was announced in early June that Olbermann would co-host a post-season baseball sports show for Turner Sports. The liberal firebrand was fired from MSNBC in 2011 and then fired again from Current TV in 2012.

@eScarry