It is time once again for me to answer the wide variety of questions you have sent in for a mailbag edition of Traina Thoughts. This week, we have a solid mix of questions, with a couple of very creative queries to wrap things up. Here we go ...
Do you think ESPN will allow the Inside the NBA crew the freedom to continue to be unscripted? Or will they try to control it and thus diluting the product?
— Leo (@Leo78080404) May 30, 2025
It’s wild to me that there is still so much confusion about this, but I realize I’m in sports media and the regular average Joe fan is not. The confusion also shows that ESPN has not had great messaging about this setup, but maybe the network is waiting until after this season to start promoting the fact that Inside the NBA, with Ernie Johnson, Charles Barkley, Kenny Smith and Shaquille O’Neal, will be on its air beginning in October.
ESPN won’t really have the option to “control” Inside the NBA because Inside the NBA won’t be an ESPN show. ESPN isn’t producing the show. The show will still be produced by TNT. The only difference is that the show will air on ESPN.
This is strictly a licensing deal, much like the one ESPN has with Pat McAfee. ESPN does not produce McAfee’s show and the network does not have editorial control over McAfee’s show. ESPN can pull the show off the air if it doesn’t like something McAfee is saying or doing, but the network has zero editorial say over the show.
It will be the same set up for Inside the NBA next season. TNT runs the show. ESPN airs the show.
I think the interesting aspect of this deal, which I discussed in-depth with Andrew Marchand on this week’s SI Media With Jimmy Traina, is exactly when the show will air and how much time will the show be given. There are nights during the season when Inside the NBA is going until 1 a.m. ET. Will that happen on ESPN?
What are the top five things you’d change about sports that would make the experience (in venue or TV) better for fans? I’m thinking game times, in stadium experience, rules, media coverage, anything that you think makes it better.
— MB West (@BrayMb1) May 30, 2025
I’ll stick to TV stuff since nothing can make going to a game more enjoyable unless I am the only person in the stadium or arena since people don’t know how to behave these days.
I’ll give you six.
- Not one sporting event would ever air on a streaming service.
- No three-person booths ever.
- NFL would play seven days a week. I’d settle for six.
- Every national game would have an alternate feed with local announcers.
- Ban rules analysts on all telecasts
- Get rid of timeouts in all sports.
The production value of the Monday Night Football broadcast is excellent; why does ESPN/ABC NBA coverage not have the same feel?
— Yoda (@TopShotYoda) May 30, 2025
It doesn’t seem that ESPN thinks the production value of Monday Night Football is excellent because in March the network replaced director Derek Mobley, who had the job the past two seasons, with Artie Kempner, who worked with Joe Buck and Troy Aikman at Fox.
“I feel like we are not in the same conversation with Fox and CBS relative to our overall game presentation,” ESPN President Burke Magnus told The Athletic’s Andrew Marchand.
Kempner will be Buck and Aikman’s third director in their four seasons at ESPN.
As for the NBA production, I can’t say I’ve noticed that ESPN’s coverage is substandard, outside of completely embarrassing itself during the Knicks-Celtics series by covering the celebrities in attendance more than the games. ESPN was literally cutting to a celebrity after almost every Knicks basket.
Apple TV has a night without NBA or NHL competition for Yankees Dodgers.. but it's a west coast game so that might impact numbers on the east coast. Even still this seems like their chance for their best ratings..what do you think they get?
— Billy Blake (@_Billy_Blake) May 30, 2025
Apple doesn’t release ratings for its Friday night baseball package, which means they are embarrassingly bad. Will more people watch Yankees-Dodgers this Friday than all the other games they’ve aired this season? Yes. But going from barely any viewers to hardly any viewers isn’t anything to brag about.
This was another topic I discussed with Marchand on this week’s SI Media Podcast, and Marchand said he has heard the Apple viewership numbers are “very low.”
The biggest killer about Apple’s Friday night package is that Friday is a big night for people to go out. One of life’s little pleasures is going out to watch a big game in a bar or restaurant. But that ain’t happening for an Apple game.
What will happen to Sunday Night Baseball next season after ESPN will be no longer broadcasting MLB. Is there a rights partner that is in line to take over? Will the Sunday Night package be only on a streamer? Or will someone else pick it up?
— ESLRUSH (@sportsblog2) May 30, 2025
No deal has been struck yet for the package of Sunday Night Baseball, the Home Run Derby and the wild-card round that ESPN gave up.
The Wall Street Journal reported last week that NBC has made a bid for the package.
After listening to Marchand on the Pod this week, I am now thoroughly confused as to what ESPN and ESPN+ content I will receive as a YouTube TV subscriber. Can you help clarify?
— Andrew Bosco (@kzh9vx) May 30, 2025
I’m still a little confused, too, but if you are a YouTubeTV subcriber who has ESPN as part of your programming package, then I’m pretty sure you will have access to everything on ESPN’s direct-to-consumer app when it gets released.
How could RSN survive if MLB doesn’t have them air any of the big games? For example SNY & YES not getting any of dodgers games
— Suffering JIM (@JIMfan523) May 30, 2025
Because the RSN’s still get about 150 regular season games and that tonnage is what’s important. If you’re a Yankees or Mets fan, you’re never going to give up on SNY or YES and just watch the nationally televised games. So the RSN’s in big markets with good teams will be fine without a few big national games.
How perfect would Fios be if we could do split screens between channels and then go full to the game we want at the time like ESPN streaming app can do?
— Yanni 🇺🇸 🇬🇷 (@YanniHalk) May 30, 2025
I’ve been a huge fan of Verizon Fios’s service since switching to the company around 2018 after ditching DirecTV because of horrific customer service.
A split-screen feature would be heavenly. A quad-box option would be even better. The quad-box on YouTube for NFL Sunday Ticket is one of the greatest things in life.
have you thought on having Muchnick on?
— David Rothman (@davidsrothman) May 30, 2025
No, I have never thought of having the New York Post’s Phil Mushnick on my podcast. If I did have him on, it would be the shortest podcast in history because I’d ask, “Why are you so miserable,” and then I’d wrap it up after getting his answer.
How many people are on this earth in which you would pay $1000/ticket for them to attend a professional game with you?
— Patrick Webb (@webb_02) May 30, 2025
This question stems from the “Traina Thoughts” segment in this week’s SI Media With Jimmy Traina, which you can listen to here, because Sal Licata revealed that a friend of his treated him to a $1,000 ticket to Thursday’s Pacers-Knicks Game 5 at Madison Square Garden.
The only people I’d want to go to a game with would be Larry David and/or Jerry Seinfeld, but I don’t think either of those guys needs my $1,000. Plus, I’d rather just pay them to come on my podcast than go to a game.
If you could go back in time to relive any year of your life, what would you choose?
— TJ (@TJRamsey44) May 30, 2025
From a professional standpoint, this is a no-brainer: In 2013 when I left SI for Fox Sports and gave up Hot Clicks.
Can the end of the year round table with you, Schrager, and Pearloff be twice a year? First, I am out of book recommendations and loved everything mentioned last time. Second it fills the dreaded dead sports summer days with fun banter and predictions. I’ll hang up and listen.
— Bring23 (@BmRing23) May 30, 2025
This is a very good idea. I will try to make it happen.
Here are questions that came in via Instagram:
What year was The Spike Lee/Reggie Miller choke sign game? –@stevencarroll8
This question also stems from the “Traina Thoughts” segment of this week’s SI Media With Jimmy Traina where there was mass confusion about the time of the Knicks-Pacers rivalry in the ‘90s.
I was correct on the podcast in saying that the game in which Reggie Miller scored eight points in nine seconds was Game 1 of the 1995 Easter Conference semifinals. I was also correct in saying that Game 7 of the 1995 Easter Conference semifinals was the Patrick Ewing missed finger roll game.
I erred in saying the Miller choke sign/fight with Spike Lee came in 1995. That happened in the 1994 Eastern Conference finals. Sal Licata was wrong about everything!
The funny thing is that now that I have the dates figured out, the Reggie Miller/Spike Lee thing is completely and totally overblown because the Knicks ended up beating the Pacers in that series to go to the NBA Finals.
Brian Cashman fired or 15 hours of unreleased Sopranos scenes from Season 2-5? –@evens4hw
I love the creativity here. I’d look like a jerk if I said I wanted Cashman fired right now when the Yankees are 35–20 and coming off a World Series appearance.
I would like to remind everyone, though, that the Yankees have not won the World Series since 2009.
So I’ll go with the unreleased Sopranos scenes. But I want them all from Season 2 and 3, which are the two best in my opinion. I want more Richie and more Ralphie.
Any chance your dad would be a future guest on the pod? –@drew-nature-dogs
If a lot of listeners tell me they’d like to hear my dad talk about how he doesn’t know how to use one electronic device, despite having many of them, and how he thinks I’m his personal IT guy and that my house is an Apple Genius Bar, then maybe I would have him on.
Since I mentioned this week‘’s SI Media With Jimmy Traina several times in the Mailbag, let me give it a proper plug here at the end of the column.
A brand-new SI Media With Jimmy Traina podcast dropped Thursday morning. This week’s guest is The Athletic’s media reporter/columnist Andrew Marchand.
Topics discussed on the podcast: What does ESPN’s direct-to-consumer product mean for ESPN+?; who has done the better job hiring NBA talent for next season, NBC or Amazon?; Reggie Miller’s work calling Knicks-Pacers; how will Inside the NBA look on ESPN?; how will Caitlin Clark’s two-week absence due to injury affect Fever ratings?; NFL schedule release; Pablo Torre’s reporting on the Bill Belichick/girlfriend soap opera and much more.
Following Marchand, Sal Licata from WFAN radio and SNY TV in New York joins me for our weekly “Traina Thoughts” segment. This week, we discuss the Knicks-Pacers series, an old 30 for 30 episode that I recently watched, Ben Stiller vs. Pat McAfee and the best Ben Stiller movies.
You can listen to the SI Media With Jimmy Traina podcast below or on Apple and Spotify.
You can also watch SI Media With Jimmy Traina on Sports Illustrated‘s YouTube channel.
Be sure to catch up on past editions of Traina Thoughts and check out the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast hosted by Jimmy Traina on Apple, Spotify or Google. You can also follow Jimmy on X and Instagram.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Traina Thoughts Mailbag: ‘Inside the NBA’ on ESPN, MLB on Apple and More.
