{"id":200833,"date":"2025-10-09T19:12:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-09T19:12:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/200833\/"},"modified":"2025-10-09T19:12:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-09T19:12:07","slug":"espns-lopsided-inside-the-nba-schedule-raises-eyebrows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/200833\/","title":{"rendered":"ESPN\u2019s lopsided \u2018Inside the NBA\u2019 schedule raises eyebrows"},"content":{"rendered":"

The NBA broadcasting landscape is set to look dramatically different this year. After 36 years of NBA games airing on TNT, Turner Sports will no longer carry the games. That also means the beloved \u201cInside the NBA\u201d studio show<\/a>, winner of 21 Emmy Awards and a member of the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame, is undergoing a major transition.<\/p>\n

Beginning in the 2025-26 season, \u201cInside the NBA\u201d will air on ESPN, which announced its long-awaited programming schedule Thursday. Reaction on social media quickly centered around disappointment with a limited schedule in the early months of the season.<\/p>\n

Ernie Johnson, Kenny Smith, Charles Barkley and Shaquille O\u2019Neal will make their ESPN debut at 6 p.m. EST on Oct. 22 as part of the network\u2019s season-opening slate. After that, the group will only appear twice more before Christmas. For context, the famed quartet\u2019s show consistently aired weekly on TNT during the NBA season.<\/p>\n

However, The Athletic\u2019s Richard Deitsch reported<\/a> on Sept. 19 that \u201cInside the NBA\u201d would be taking an early-season \u201chiatus,\u201d because ESPN\u2019s NBA schedule is backloaded.<\/p>\n

Viewers will see the group on a more consistent basis in 2026. From Jan. 24 through the end of the regular season in mid-April, \u201cInside the NBA\u201d will air 15 times on ESPN, including three straight nights on March 6-8.<\/p>\n

\u201cInside the NBA\u201d pregame shows airing on ESPN will run for one hour, while those aired on ABC will be 30 minutes long. Postgame coverage for ESPN games and \u201cNBA Saturday Primetime on ABC\u201d\u00a0 will begin immediately following the contest. When \u201cInside\u201d begins appearing on Saturday ABC games in January, a shortened postgame show will run there before continuing on the ESPN app.<\/p>\n

The announcement of postgame coverage may assuage some concerns, most notably from Barkley. In September, the 11-time All-Star expressed doubts about the direction of the show when speaking to The Ringer\u2019s Bill Simmons. He worried that the show wouldn\u2019t have the freedom for longer segments like in the past, which gave the program its unique flavor.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been talking behind the scenes,\u201d Barkley said. \u201cLike, after the game, are we going to get any time or are they going to say, \u2018You have to go straight to Sportscenter?’\u201d<\/p>\n

ESPN president of content Burke Magnus said the product will remain the same despite the seemingly large change.<\/p>\n

\u201c(Fans are) going to get the show they love in a way that\u2019s very similar to the way it\u2019s always been,\u201d Magnus told Deitsch. \u201cIt\u2019s still produced in Atlanta by the very same people that produced it for Turner. It\u2019s in their building. Other than a logo on the set, it\u2019s going to appear the same, and that\u2019s exactly what we want.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The NBA broadcasting landscape is set to look dramatically different this year. After 36 years of NBA games…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":200834,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,459,82,575],"class_list":["post-200833","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nba","tag-sports","tag-sports-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200833"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200833\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/200834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}