Rachel Nichols, the veteran sports TV host whose long ESPN tenure was cut short by controversy, is finally reemerging in a new on-air home.
She joins Showtime Basketball, a new content vertical on Paramount Global’s premium network, and will contribute to multiple programs and projects. Along with announcing her new corporate address, Nichols participated in her first sit-down interview about the circumstances of the ESPN situation.
In 2021, Nichols was removed from The Jump, ESPN’s signature NBA show, and the show was canceled after an audio recording surfaced of comments Nichols, who is white, made about former colleague Maria Taylor, who Black. Nichols contends that an ESPN staff member recorded her without her knowledge via remote video link and then supplied the recording to The New York Times. The news outlet framed the audio as evidence of racial insensitivity directed at Taylor. (Taylor has also since decamped, for NBC Sports.) Nichols later settled with the network, but in the interview with All the Smoke, a Showtime video podcast hosted by former NBA players Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson , Nichols describes what she says were extreme limitations on her options during and immediately after ESPN’s internal investigation into the matter.
In the All the Smoke chat, Nichols pushed back on the characterization of her departure by The Times and other outlets. She said her 2019 contract extension included a stipulation that she would be the studio host for ESPN/ABC’s coverage of the NBA Finals on NBA Countdown, which she called “my dream job.” When Taylor was lined up in 2020 to host Countdown instead, Nichols said, “I thought, ‘I’ve worked so long for this’ … I wanted the chance to do it.” When he vented to a friend about the situation during the 2020 Florida bubble environment, a colleague selected material from that conversation.
Nichols, who has developed expertise in NBA broadcasts during her 25-year career, will join a roster at Showtime that includes Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, JR Smith and Twitter influencer Josiah Johnson.
“We are delighted to welcome Rachel Nichols to the Showtime Basketball family,” said Brian Dailey, SVP of Sports Programming & Content at Showtime Networks. “Rachel brings unparalleled journalistic credibility, deep familiarity with our roster and a work ethic that will take us to another level.”
Nichols created and hosted The Jump from its inception as a daily ESPN show in 2016 to 2021. She has also covered multiple Super Bowls, World Series, Stanley Cup Finals, Olympics and tennis and golf majors, after nearly to a decade writing for the Washington Post. At Turner Sports from 2013-16, he hosted Unguarded with Rachel Nichols on CNN, covered the NBA for TNT, the NCAA men’s basketball tournament on CBS and TBS, the MLB playoffs on TBS, the NFL and boxing. During her first tenure at ESPN beginning in 2004, she covered the NFL, NBA, contributed as a reporter for E:60 and appeared on SportsCenter.
“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 widest playing field yet. me again,” said Nichols. “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.”
