‘Inside the NBA’ is moving to ESPN and is set to start next year

Rumors started surfacing the internet last week, suggesting that Inside the NBA will continue on next season, despite all the fuzz that was made when Warner Bros. Discovery was losing their rights to keep transmitting the world’s biggest basketball league. Now, it is confirmed that the beloved show will continue under TNT production. 

This Monday, news broke out once again with ESPN confirming the reports that they will take over the broadcast rights for the show to continue covering the NBA when the newest media rights deal begins. The league’s 11-year contract is set to start with the 2025-26 campaign.

Now, we are aware of new details about when fans will be able to watch Charles Barkley, Shaquille O’Neal, Ernie Johnson and Kenny Smith talk basketball under ESPN’s guidance. “TNT Sports will continue to independently produce Inside the NBA from its Atlanta-based studios over the term of the agreement.

ESPN will be the exclusive home of the iconic 'Inside the NBA' starting with the 2025-2026 season

The pregame, halftime & postgame show for NBA Finals, NBA Playoffs, Christmas Day, NBA on ABC & more

Details: https://t.co/0y3YDenAUJ pic.twitter.com/ABBdsM74VH

— ESPN PR (@ESPNPR) November 18, 2024

“The legendary ‘Inside the NBA’ studio team will appear on ESPN and ABC surrounding high-profile live events, including ESPN’s pregame, halftime and postgame coverage of the NBA Finals on ABC, conference finals, NBA playoffs, all ABC games after January 1, Christmas Day, opening week, the final week of the season and other marquee live events,” ESPN announced in a statement.

They have also confirmed that their in-house studio programs like NBA Today and NBA Countdown will also carry on as usual starting next year’s campaign. This means that Inside the NBA won’t replace entirely ESPN’s studio coverage of the basketball league.

Even though it has been confirmed that starting on January 25, Inside the NBA will host regular-season matches on 12 different dates on the weekends, it hasn’t been confirmed that they will participate in this year’s All-Star Weekend which is set in San Francisco next February.

“The opportunity to continue the iconic and Emmy Award-winning ‘Inside the NBA’ is a huge win for basketball fans everywhere,” NBA Commissioner Adam Silver shared in a statement. “We look forward to building on our longstanding partnership with TNT Sports and working together to promote NBA content across key WBD and NBA platforms.”

The NBA and Warner Bros. Discovery finally agree to settle lawsuit over live game rights without things getting even messier

In other news, Warner Bros. Discovery had been pursuing a lawsuit in which they assured the NBA didn’t give them the opportunity to renegotiate properly to extend their media rights deal with the league, but ended up reaching a new agreement before things got messier. Now CEO David Zaslav will be able to walk away with something.

“Together these agreements ensure fans will continue to enjoy TNT’s ‘Inside the NBA’ and create tremendous value for our entire portfolio as we accelerate the growth of TNT Sports, Bleacher Report, House of Highlights and our global sports business,” the Warner Bros. executive said in a statement.

Commissioner Silver told the media last month that the NBA could’ve stuck a deal with their former associates in Warner Bros. Discovery, but explained how they never saw things eye to eye. “It wasn’t a longtime relationship with the people currently running Warner Brothers Discovery,” Adam shared. “Ideally in these partnerships, people aren’t pulling out the contract and saying page eight, paragraph three.

“You’re saying you understand the spirit of what you were trying to accomplish, and that you’re willing to adjust based on changes that might have been unpredictable. So when you’re actually looking at the contract, that’s a sign that the partnership isn’t going as well.”