Former ESPN NBA Host Rachel Nichols Lands at Showtime

Rachel Nichols has landed at Showtime Basketball, the sports-focused vertical of the pay TV channel and streaming service.

Nichols will serve as a host and producer for Showtime Basketball, which produces video and audio podcasts, docuseries and documentary programming, among other fare.

Programming from the vertical includes the series Kevin Garnett: Anything Is Possible, and SpringHill’s Shut Up and Dribble. Its talent includes people like Garnett, Paul Pierce, J.R. Smith and Josiah Johnson.

“I’ve been so fortunate to live my dream job alongside some of the best journalists in the business for more than 25 years, and this new development deal with Showtime Sports gives me my most broad playing field yet,” said Nichols in a statement. “They’ve asked me to produce, create and host new sports programming across platforms, working alongside Hall of Famers, multiple guys with championship rings and an uber-creative team behind the camera. We’re going to have so much fun.”

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.”