Rachel Nichols will contribute to multiple programs and projects from Showtime Basketball across multiple platforms,” per the network. She also appeared on the video podcast All the Smoke With Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson to announce the move. Nichols covered the NBA for ESPN since joining the network in 2004, but she stirred controversy last year when private comments she made about former colleague Maria Taylor leaked, implying that Taylor, who is Black, only got to host ESPN’s NBA Finals coverage because the network was “feeling pressure about” their “crappy longtime record on diversity.” Nichols apologized, but was later removed from the network’s NBA coverage, with her daily news show The Jump being cancelled as well. (Taylor left ESPN soon after to join NBC Sports.) The veteran NBA reporter and host left ESPN in January after comments she had made in a private phone call were published in The New York Times, sparking controversy at the sports TV juggernaut.
In the conversation with Adam Mendelsohn, an adviser to Los Angeles Lakers superstar LeBron James and James’ agent, Rich Paul, Nichols sought advice about fellow ESPN NBA reporter Maria Taylor being selected to host NBA Countdown, the channel’s key pre- and postgame program, during the NBA Finals. “If you need to give her more things to do because you are feeling pressure about your crappy longtime record on diversity – which, by the way, I know personally from the female side of it – like, go for it,” Nichols said. “Just find it somewhere else. You are not going to find it from me or taking my thing away. I just want them [ESPN] to go somewhere else it’s in my contract, by the way; this job is in my contract in writing.” The conversation took place amid the novel coronavirus pandemic, with Nichols and other ESPN talent were not working out of the channel’s studios. Nichols made the call from a hotel in the NBA “bubble” it had set up. It also happened in the wake of the protests tied to the murder of George Floyd, with many companies Disney included reacting to the racial reckoning it sparked. Unbeknownst to Nichols, an ESPN employee recorded her comments and shared them internally, before they ended up in the Times. Nichols subsequently apologized to Taylor, and ESPN chief Jimmy Pitaro sent employees a memo promising to do a “deep dive” on the company’s diversity and inclusion efforts. “We respect and acknowledge there are a variety of feelings about what happened and the actions we took,” Pitaro wrote in the memo of the Times story. “The details of what took place last year are confidential, nuanced and complicated personnel matters. But understand this we have a much better story than what you’ve seen this week.” Ultimately, Nichols was removed from ESPN’s NBA coverage, and her daily show The Jump was canceled. Taylor subsequently left ESPN for NBC Sports, where she contributes to its Olympics and NFL coverage. Nichols will address her departure from ESPN for the first time in an episode of Showtime Basketball’s video podcast All the Smoke With Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson being released Friday. And at Showtime, she will once again be able to produce content for basketball fans familiar with her work over the past 25 years. “We are delighted to welcome Rachel Nichols to the Showtime Basketball family,” said Brian Dailey, senior vp sports programming and content for Showtime Networks. “Rachel brings unmatched journalistic credibility, great familiarity with our roster and a work ethic that will take us to another level.”