SI

ESPN President on ‘Inside the NBA’: ‘We Don’t Want to Change It’

Burke Magnus shares inside details on the network’s deal to license ‘Inside the NBA’ from TNT.

Jimmy Traina

“Inside the NBA” will live on next season on ESPN.
“Inside the NBA” will live on next season on ESPN. / JR Radcliffe / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

1. The iconic Inside the NBA studio show was saved from possibly ending after this season when ESPN and Warner Bros. Discovery struck a deal that will have WBD license the show to ESPN, beginning with the 2025–26 campaign.

On this week’s SI Media With Jimmy Traina podcast, ESPN President Burke Magnus shared some details regarding the deal and addressed some speculation about the show’s future, which will see TNT remain in charge of all aspects of the show. The only difference is that Inside the NBA will air on ESPN/ABC.

“They’re going to produce it, and that’s exactly what we want,” Magnus said on the podcast.

“Of course we’re not going to change the show,” Magnus added. “Why would we take something so successful and so iconic, bring it over and then be like, ‘We know better, we’re gonna change it.’”

Magnus reiterated that the Inside the NBA we’ve always seen is the Inside the NBA we’re gonna get.

“We don’t want to change it. We don’t want to interject new talent into it. We don’t want to really do anything to it.”

So, when and where will we see Ernie Johnson, Charles Barkley, Kenny Smith and Shaquille O’Neal and Inside the NBA on ESPN/ABC?

“They’ll do the NBA Final,” said Magnus. “They’ll do a Conference Final, which is part of a new rights agreement. They’ll do pretty much the entire playoff run. And then they’ll do primarily during the regular season, the Saturday night and/or Sunday afternoon window on ABC.

“And then there’s a mechanism for some select games on ESPN. Opening Night, a tentpole regular-season game that happens to fall in November or December. For example, if we had had Boston-Cleveland Tuesday night, that would’ve been a perfect way to activate for that game for ESPN. And then Christmas Day and that sort of thing.”

With ESPN airing NBA games during the week, this means the network’s current studio show, NBA Countdown, will remain a fixture on the network.

“Yeah, that stays,” Magnus said about Countdown.

“NBA Countdown will be the studio show around all the other windows. A ton of opportunities for that show to continue and it will.”

Was bringing Inside the NBA to ESPN just a straight business decision or did good public relations play a part in ESPN saving the show?

“We’re fans, too,” Magnus said. “At the end of the day, I’m a big fan of that show. We didn’t want to see it end either, as fans. The opportunity to bolster our coverage and really preserve an iconic institution played a role for sure. But it played a role almost selfishly because I want to see it keep going, too.”

Magnus added that ESPN has heard from the cast and “They are very happy about the show continuing.”

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

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

2. Speaking of Inside the NBA...

I’m not proud that I enjoy the latest social media trend in which couples call each other out as “suspects” while revealing embarrassing facts about one another, but, sadly, I do.

So I thoroughly enjoyed the Inside the NBA crew participating in the trend. “Suspect’s gonna get really tired if he tries to name all his kids” is just a tremendous line.

3. Even one current NFL player and one former NFL player (and two future Hall of Famers) are concerned about Netflix’s ability to stream a pair of Christmas Day NFL games without any technical issues.

4. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: If you are LeBron James, the second-greatest NBA player in the past 40 years behind Michael Jordan, one of the most influential athletes of all time and someone worth more than $1 billion, why on earth would you be on Twitter in the first place? I will never, ever, ever understand why someone like LeBron would subject himself to the cesspool that is Twitter. He should leave, delete his account and never come back. There are only positives in doing that. Zero negatives.

5. I don’t believe this figure. At all. Not even a little bit.

6. J.J. Watt had a ruthless response to ESPN’s Dan Orlovsky saying that the Steelers, featuring T.J. Watt, had no chance to make the Super Bowl this season.

7. RANDOM VIDEO OF THE DAY: Happy 58th birthday to Troy Aikman. Let’s remember the time John Madden mocked Aikman, telestrator included, for not being able to grow a beard.

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 X and Instagram.

Published
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.

Home/NBA