{"id":167893,"date":"2025-09-19T15:51:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-19T15:51:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/167893\/"},"modified":"2025-09-19T15:51:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-19T15:51:07","slug":"espn-aims-to-preserve-inside-the-nba-format-when-show-debuts-on-network-in-october","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/167893\/","title":{"rendered":"ESPN aims to preserve \u2018Inside the NBA\u2019 format when show debuts on network in October"},"content":{"rendered":"

ESPN president of content Burke Magnus wants to assure all fans of \u201cInside The NBA\u201d that his company is not going to screw around with the iconic show.<\/p>\n

When the \u201cInside The NBA\u201d crew comes to ESPN this season, Magnus told The Athletic they will be on for the pregame, halftime and postgame.<\/p>\n

Asked directly if \u201cInside\u201d will be able to go as long as it did on TNT when it comes to postgame talk, Magnus said, \u201cThat is our goal. It will be as close to that as we can possibly get. I understand that standard operating procedure for us for many years has been to get to SportsCenter. There\u2019s going to be 200 or 300 nights or so that we\u2019re still going to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The full details of how ESPN will use \u201cInside The NBA\u201d are likely to emerge over the next three weeks. Still, Magnus told The Athletic that the famed crew of Ernie Johnson, Charles Barkley, Kenny Smith and Shaquille O\u2019Neal will be part of ESPN\u2019s opening night coverage on Oct. 22 (Cleveland Cavaliers versus New York Knicks and San Antonio Spurs versus Orlando Magic).<\/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 said. \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

\u201cInside\u201d will then have a hiatus early in the season, as ESPN\u2019s NBA schedule is backloaded. The \u201cInside\u201d crew will be on the air for the Christmas Day lineup. Magnus confirmed the group will be on the air for all of ESPN\u2019s playoff nights.<\/p>\n

For 35 years, \u201cInside the NBA\u201d has been a basketball mainstay for TNT, relying on the smooth workings of host Johnson (since 1990) to navigate the observations \u2014 and personalities \u2014 of analysts Smith (joined in 1998), Barkley (2000) and O\u2019Neal (2011). The show collected 21 Sports Emmys over that time and, in 2020, was honored by the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame with the Curt Gowdy Media Award, making it the first NBA telecast to earn the honor.<\/p>\n

Given that TNT is not part of the NBA\u2019s new 11-year, $76 billion media rights agreement<\/a>, ESPN reached a landmark licensing deal to broadcast the show on Disney properties.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen these guys are going, we\u2019re going to let them go,\u201d Magnus said. \u201cWe have a few more complications than Turner with live events, but we also have more platforms and more networks to deal with. We want the same outcome as the headline here. The equivalent would be if we acquired College GameDay and then said, \u2018You know what? We think two hours is better than three.\u2019 None of that is going to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

On nights when the \u201cInside the NBA\u201d crew is not there, Magnus said ESPN will use its \u201cNBA Countdown\u201d crew consisting of Malika Andrews, Bob Myers, Kendrick Perkins and Michael Wilbon, among others. He discussed \u201cInside The NBA\u201d and other ESPN-related topics in a long-form interview with the \u201cSports Media Podcast\u201d that will be published in the upcoming days.<\/p>\n

Magnus said what will be different is based on scheduling, because ESPN\u2019s NBA schedule is different than what Turner had. For example, ESPN holds the rights to Wednesday NBA doubleheaders, Saturday nights on ABC and Sunday afternoons on ABC, with an occasional Friday game also in the mix. Turner had Tuesdays and Thursdays, with no sports programming after games to put constraints on the flexibility of \u201cInside\u201d to run long.<\/p>\n

(Photo: Ethan Miller \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ESPN president of content Burke Magnus wants to assure all fans of \u201cInside The NBA\u201d that his company…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":167894,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[690,355,99,1794],"class_list":["post-167893","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-culture","tag-nba","tag-sports","tag-sports-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=167893"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167893\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/167894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=167893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=167893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=167893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}