TNT’s popular ‘Inside the NBA’ to move to ESPN next season: New details
The NBA will be leaving Turner Sports, but its popular, Emmy-award winning “Inside The NBA” studio show won’t be leaving the air after all.
Instead, Ernie Johnson, Charles Barkley, Kenny Smith and Shaquille O’Neal will move their show to ESPN next season as part of an out-of-court settlement struck between Warner Brothers Discovery (which owns Turner Sports) and the NBA.
Johnson, Barkley, Smith and O’Neal will host pre-game, halftime and postgame shows for ABC’s NBA Finals broadcasts, a conference finals on ESPN, some other playoff games on ABC and ESPN, Christmas Day games on ABC and ESPN, the opening week of the season on ESPN, all ABC games after Jan. 1, the final week of the season and other marquee live events.
TNT will produce show for ESPN and it will continue to originate from Turner’s Atlanta based studios.
As part of the agreement, WBD agreed to drop its lawsuit alleging that the NBA violated language in its television contract by rejecting WBD’s attempt to match Amazon’s offer for a package of NBA rights beginning next season.
WBD asserted that it matched Amazon’s offer. The NBA claimed that it was impossible for WBD to match Amazon’s offer because of some aspects of the deal which WBD simply could not match.
As an example, Amazon agreed to promote its NBA games on NFL telecasts, and Warner Brothers Discovery does not carry NFL games.
As part of the agreement to drop its lawsuit, WBD will sublicense “Inside the NBA” to ESPN, and ESPN agreed to give Turner Sports a package of Big 12 games, including 13 football and 15 basketball games annually.
WBD’s digital platforms, Bleacher Report and House of Highlights, will continue to be granted access to NBA content, and the NBA’s digital partnership with WBD will expand. Also, WBD reportedly will continue to operate NBA TV for now, but there was no mention of that in the NBA press release and the network’s long-term future is in question.
Additionally, WBD was granted live NBA game telecast rights in the Nordics (Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden), along with Poland and Latin America (excluding Brazil and Mexico) for the next 11 years.
And TNT’s “Inside the NBA” cast will be involved in projects that will air on WBD platforms, including an “Inside Sports” show in development for next season.
The “Inside the NBA” part of the agreement means the show, for the first time, will follow NBA Finals broadcasts.
“Inside the NBA is universally recognized as one of the best and most culturally impactful shows in sports,” ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro said in a statement on Monday. “We have long-admired the immensely talented team and are thrilled to add their chemistry and knowledge to our robust set of NBA studio offerings to super-serve NBA fans like never before. The addition of Inside the NBA further solidifies ESPN as the preeminent destination for sports fans.”
TNT’s Inside the NBA debuted during the 1989-90 season. It has won 21 Sports Emmy Awards and in 2020 was recognized by the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame as the recipient of the Curt Gowdy Transformative Media Award.
ESPN’s NBA studio shows have had frequent turnover in talent over the years, as network executives continually tried to find the right mix of analysts. Even with the “Inside the NBA” deal, Malika Andrews and ESPN analysts will continue to handle studio work for the majority of ESPN’s NBA games, and the network’s Andrews-hosted “NBA Countdown” program will continue to precede those games.
“NBA Today” -- the Andrews-hosted weekday studio show -- will be unaffected by the “Inside the NBA” announcement.
The NBA’s new 11-year, $77 billion TV deals, announced in July, will split rights among ABC/ESPN, NBC and Amazon. ABC/ESPN will continue to own the marquee package, including the NBA Finals every year and a conference semifinals in 10 of the 11 years of the new deal. ABC/ESPN also will continue to air games on Wednesday nights and Sunday afternoons and some Saturday nights.
NBC will have six conference finals, Tuesday night games, Sunday night games after NFL season and a Monday package on its streaming service, Peacock.
Amazon will carry games on Fridays and will stream a Thursday package following NFL season, in addition to carrying the NBA Cup in-season tournament and a conference finals six of the 11 years of the deal.
“Inside The NBA” will remain on TNT through the conclusion of this season, the final year of TNT’s deal to televise the NBA.
This story was originally published November 16, 2024 at 10:42 PM.
