Earlier in the week, Inside the NBA studio host Ernie Johnson was inducted into the Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame, a monumental achievement within his illustrious broadcast career. Johnson had been informed of the news over the summer while hosting coverage of The Match in Las Vegas, and he was surprised by colleagues Charles Barkley, Shaquille O’Neal and Kenny “The Jet” Smith at the ceremony in New York City to present him with the award.
During his acceptance speech, Johnson took the time to thank people involved in the show at Warner Bros. Discovery Sports, his colleagues and family as he continues in his 34th year hosting what is widely regarded as one of the signature sports television programs.
Johnson’s father, Ernie Johnson Sr., was a former baseball player for the Atlanta Braves and moved into the broadcast booth when his career ended. Although Johnson Jr. played baseball for a year at the University of Georgia – including knocking in a game-winning RBI against the University of Tennessee – he was cut from the team in his sophomore year and became involved in the student radio station. There was no pressure from his father to get into broadcasting, but Johnson Jr. ended up pursuing the craft on his own accord.
“He just wanted me to do whatever was going to get my heart pumping a little faster and whatever I had passion for,” Johnson said in an interview with The Steakhouse Friday morning on 92.9 The Game. “Once I tried that, it was like, ‘Well, this is a pretty cool thing to do. Get into the games for free and cover sports,’ and that’s how it started.”
Co-host Stephen “Steak” Shapiro articulated to Johnson that Inside the NBA is the finest program in the history of sports television. Moreover, he articulated the reputation that the show has which always keeps viewers interested and entertained despite the quality of the games on the air that night. Shapiro asked Johnson what has made the program so appealing to viewers over the years aside from the ostensibly organic chemistry of the analysts on the panel.
“I think the fact that nobody’s really tried to make the show about themselves,” Johnson answered. “It just kind of happens from one night to the next that, ‘Oh, everybody’s talking about what Shaq did,’ or, ‘Charles said this,’ [or], ‘Kenny said that.’ That, I think, [has] been the real key.”
Barkley, O’Neal and Smith all played in the NBA for several years, wherefore they work to explain the esoteric knowledge they gained from playing and following the game to the audience. The adept and nimble manner in which they render concepts discernible and comprehensible informs the viewers, along with their on-air banter and gimmicks. Some of these include races to the big board and interactions during “EJ’s Neat-O Stat of the Night,” the latter of which has been famously unsullied by sponsorship since 1989.
“We have an unrehearsed, unscripted show [where] these guys don’t go to the production meetings; they’re not invited,” Ernie Johnson said of the Inside the NBA analysts. “We don’t want them to know what we have cooked up that night, and sometimes it’s the things that we talk about in the production meeting that carry the night, but a lot of times it really [is] something that happens.”
Johnson genuinely does not know what is going to happen next on the program and is aware of the fact that while there are dedicated viewers, there are also people who could be watching the show for the first time on any given night. Because of this, it is incumbent on him and his panelists to remain consistent and provide the viewers with what they came to see. Within these performances, they amalgamate pedagogy and repartee before, surrounding and after the NBA games of the night.
“You can’t take a night off; you can’t just mail it in,” Ernie Johnson said. “There are new sets of eyeballs on that show and [we] want to prove to them, ‘Yeah, this is what you heard about and I hope it met your expectations.’”
Smith and Barkley have worked with Johnson for over 20 years, while O’Neal joined the program in 2011 and has remained on the air ever since. The cast of the program recently inked decade-long contract extensions, although Barkley has stated that he does not intend to finish out that deal. Warner Bros. Discovery is reportedly expected to enter negotiations with the NBA to continue its relationship with the league as a rightsholder ahead of the expiration of the existing media rights deal at the conclusion of the 2024-25 campaign.
“There’s always somebody in TV who says, ‘No, I’ve got a better idea. I think these guys work,’” Ernie Johnson said. “No, [Warner Bros. Discovery Sports has] just kind of left us alone and said, ‘Hey, we’ve got a good thing going on there with Inside,’ and so they can scratch that off their list of worries. ‘Okay, let those guys do their thing,’ and that is really – I can’t express how great that makes us feel, and I think we try to repay their loyalty to us with a product night-in, night-out that folks enjoy.”
