As part of a lucrative extension with ESPN, Stephen A. Smith is set to exit his regular role on the network’s “NBA Countdown” pregame show. Plus: ESPN has hired Dan Wetzel of Yahoo! Sports; WBD CEO David Zaslav is talking up his company’s loss of NBA rights; and more.
As part of lucrative extension, Smith to exit regular “NBA Countdown” role
ESPN personality Stephen A. Smith has reached a five-year contract extension worth a total of $100 million to remain with the company, Andrew Marchand of The Athletic reported Thursday. Under the deal, Smith is no longer expected to appear regularly on ESPN’s “NBA Countdown” pregame show, which as of next season will play second fiddle to the TNT-produced “Inside the NBA” on the network.
Smith could make occasional appearances on “top basketball studio programs,” which one could interpret to mean “Inside the NBA.” He has already made cameos on “Inside” — which is still airing exclusively on TNT — the past two seasons.
ESPN hires Yahoo! writer Wetzel for enterprise journalism unit
ESPN announced Thursday that it has hired Yahoo! Sports writer Dan Wetzel as a senior writer in its Investigative and Enterprise Journalism Unit. Wetzel, who spent more than 20 years at Yahoo! Sports, will start a week from Monday. He joins an investigative journalism unit that recently resigned Mark Fainaru-Wada and Michael Fletcher.
In addition to Wetzel, ESPN is also adding producer Juanita Ceballos, who has produced work that has appeared on the PBS series Frontline, The New York Times and more.
Zaslav touts loss of NBA rights as “great decision”
Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav said at an investor conference this week that losing rights to the NBA was a “great decision,” touting the company’s other sports pickups, its global lineup, and perhaps most crucially, the fact that “we saved a huge amount of money.” It was Zaslav who at an investor conference three years ago said that WBD did not “have to have” the NBA, a statement widely believed to have irked the league.
After losing rights to the NBA over the summer, WBD sued the league and argued in part that the rights provided “intangible and incalculable benefits” and that “the various implications of losing the NBA distribution rights are wide-ranging and not merely difficult, but impossible to fully calculate.”
WBD reached a settlement with the NBA in which it acquired highlight rights for Bleacher Report and House of Highlights, the right to produce content for NBA.com, NBA TV and the NBA app, and $70 million/year. In an earnings call last week, Zaslav said the settlement “is really going to work for us” and touted highlight rights as more impactful than live game inventory, which he said is less appealing to younger generations.
Plus: Thanksgiving CBB, ABC NBA flex, Paralympics
— CBS will carry a Duke-Arkansas men’s college basketball game in primetime Thanksgiving night, immediately following the network’s coverage of the Cowboys’ annual game on the holiday, it was announced Thursday. The network aired Illinois-Arkansas following Bears-Lions on Thanksgiving last year, generating a season-high audience of more than five million viewers.
— ABC has added the March 16 Magic-Cavaliers NBA regular season game, replacing a previously-scheduled contest between the injury-wracked Sixers and Mavericks, it was announced Thursday. While the same two teams played on ABC in Game 7 of their first round playoff series last May, it will be their first regular season appearance on the broadcast network since 2012 and 2018, respectively.
— The NBC broadcast network is set to carry eight hours of Paralympic coverage next year, including live coverage of the sled hockey gold medal game, NBC announced Thursday. Overall, the NBC linear networks are set for 80 total hours of Paralympic coverage and NBC’s streaming platforms are set for 250.
