SI

Adrian Wojnarowski Gives Final ‘Woj Bomb’ With Shocking Retirement From ESPN

Wojnarowski is leaving the company after seven years to serve as GM of men's basketball at St. Bonaventure.

Jimmy Traina

Wojnarowski is headed back to his alma mater, St. Bonaventure.
Wojnarowski is headed back to his alma mater, St. Bonaventure. / St. Bonaventure

1. The sports world was stunned on Wednesday morning when the top insider in all of sports gave us one final Woj Bomb.

Adrian Wojnarowski announced that he is retiring from ESPN and the sports media business.

The NBA reporter will become the GM at his alma mater, St. Bonaventure.

As big as the story of Woj leaving ESPN is, there is nothing more to the story than what is out there. He wants a lifestyle change and decided to get away from the non-stop grind of the information business.

Wojnarowski told his ESPN bosses that he was leaving the company this morning, so there’s nothing to report yet about a possible replacement. Obviously, Shams Charania and ESPN would be a perfect marriage.

With 6.5 million followers on X (formerly Twitter), Wojnarowski became a huge fan favorite in the NBA world thanks to his constant scoops and inside information. Fans immediately took to Twitter to share their reactions.

2. Here's some unnecessary bush-league nonsense by the NFL.

The league took to Twitter to brag about its strong ratings through two weeks.

If you get a magnifying glass, you can see this sentence in the tiny print at the very bottom: “Viewership excludes Peacock game.”

So while the NFL and NBC/Peacock want to tout how strong viewership was for the Eagles-Packers Week 1 game, they don’t want to include it in their season ratings because the 14.2 million from the season's opener can’t compare to any of the games that air on broadcast television.

Thank you to the NFL for proving everything I said in this column to be accurate.

The bottom line is EVERY game should be included in figuring out an average rating for the games. In addition, what’s most stupid about the NFL excluding the Peacock-only game is that the league doesn’t need to fudge the numbers. Their ratings are HUGE whether you count Eagles-Packers or not.

3. Former Patriots cornerback Devin McCourty shared one hell of a story about Bill Belichick knowing stadium wind patterns with last week’s SI Media Podcast guest, Kevin Clark.

4. You have to listen very carefully, but Domonique Foxworth managed to slyly sneak in a reference to Shannon Sharpe’s recent Instagram Live controversy during Tuesday’s First Take.

5. Astros second baseman José Altuve hit a ball off his foot during last night’s game against the Padres that rolled down to third base. However, the umpires didn’t see the ball hit Altuve’s foot and ruled him out. That led to Altuve getting ejected for this hilarious move.

6. The latest episode of SI Media With Jimmy Traina features a conversation with ESPN’s Kevin Clark.

Clark talks about his transition into TV now that he’s at ESPN, his interviewing philosophy for his Omaha Productions show, This is Football, and whether we will ever see someone who isn’t a former player as an NFL or college football game analyst.

Clark also discusses Tom Brady’s debut game as Fox’s lead NFL analyst, why Bill Belichick has already been a hit as a media figure, why he thinks we won’t see less of Hard Knocks, getting critiqued by his dad, his love of Pearl Jam and more.

Following Clark, Sal Licata from WFAN radio and SNY TV in New York joins me for my weekly “Traina Thoughts“ segment. In this week’s segment, we discuss Week 1 in the NFL, cringe Cris Collinsworth, the new Sopranos documentary currently airing on Max, the upcoming Vince McMahon documentary on Netflix, a Facebook kerfuffle and more.

You can listen to the SI Media With Jimmy Traina below or on Apple and Spotify.

You can also watch SI Media With Jimmy Traina on Sports Illustrated‘s YouTube channel.

7. RANDOM VIDEO OF THE DAY: The WWE announced Tuesday that Saturday Night’s Main Event will return to NBC on Dec. 14. In honor of the news, here is the greatest moment in Saturday Night’s Main Event history.

Be sure to catch up on past editions of Traina Thoughts and check out the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast hosted by Jimmy Traina on Apple, Spotify or Google. You can also follow Jimmy on Twitter and Instagram.

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Jimmy Traina
JIMMY TRAINA

Jimmy Traina is a staff writer and podcast host for Sports Illustrated. A 20-year veteran in the industry, he’s been covering the sports media landscape for seven years and writes a daily column, Traina Thoughts. Traina has hosted the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast since 2018, a show known for interviews with some of the most important and powerful people in sports media. He also was the creator and writer of SI’s Hot Clicks feature from 2007 to '13.

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