With the conference finals about to begin in the National Basketball Association, the hourglass for TNT Sports‘ coverage of the league is nearing its end. In other words, the final episodes of the award-winning Inside the NBA will be airing before the league’s new media rights agreements kick in next year, with the program finding its new home on ESPN.
Although the program will still be housed in Atlanta, the move to ESPN has sparked a very public debate amongst the show’s personalities, including Shaquille O’Neal, Charles Barkley, Ernie Johnson, and Kenny Smith. In fact, the former Houston Rockets point guard spoke with The New Yorker about the impending end to Inside the NBA and the transition to ESPN, which initially didn’t feel right to Smith.
“We have the same crew of people doing the show. But the timing: are we a half hour now? Are we forty-five minutes? Fifteen minutes? Those are the things that you can control when you own your I.P. But we don’t,” said Smith. “That was the only part that made me uncomfortable and disheartened, because I felt that the four of us should have went into ABC to negotiate that deal.”
Meanwhile, concurrent with the settlement of a lawsuit filed by Warner Bros. Discovery against the NBA, the media conglomerate reached a deal with The Walt Disney Company to sublicense the program to ESPN and ABC beginning next season.
“I’m not saying that our executives don’t know how to do that, but we are the I.P. now. Ultimately, it’s a classic show, like ‘Seinfeld,’ so it will translate,” noted Smith.
For years, the Inside the NBA program has been a staple for NBA viewers on Thursday nights between 7 p.m. and 2 a.m. on the East Coast. However, with the move to ESPN, there is still no official announcement about when the program will air. Notably, the NBA reached agreements with Disney, NBCUniversal, and Amazon on 11-year broadcasting rights packages. Warner Bros. Discovery, for its part, settled in November of last year, earning the ability to license Inside the NBA to ESPN and ABC starting next season in a separate agreement.
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