ESPN cancels Rachel Nichols’ show, pulls her from NBA.
ESPN will cancel its show hosted with the aid of the use of Rachel Nichols and pull the longtime reporter from NBA coverage amid ongoing backlash to race-associated feedback she made about former colleague Maria Taylor, the network confirmed Wednesday.
ESPN will pull Nichols’ weekday show “The leap,” and plans to update it with new NBA content material. It’s far doubtful even as the program will burst off the air.
“We mutually agreed that this technique concerning our NBA insurance become excellent for all worried. Rachel is an excellent reporter, host, and journalist, and we thank her for her many contributions to our NBA content,” ESPN senior vice chairman for production David Roberts said in an assertion.
Nichols seemed to verify her display’s cancelation Wednesday. In a tweet, she stated, “The leap end up in no way built to closing all the time but it sure grows to be a laugh.”
She delivered: “greater to go back …”
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A huge apple times report in July determined the remarks Nichols made 12 months in advance to Adam Mendelsohn.
Marketing representative to NBA movie star LeBron James, which made waves inside the Walt Disney-owned commercial enterprise organization and pro-basketball international.
In feedback captured on video without her information, Nichols indicated she concept Taylor have been given an interesting net web hosting ESPN’s pregame and postgame coverage of the 2020 NBA Finals due to the fact she is Black and the network became searching for to beautify its document on the range.
“in case you want to offer her greater activities due to the fact you experience stress about your crappy longtime file on the variety which, with the useful resource of the way, I realize in my view from the female side of it like, pass for it,” Nichols, who is white, stated in audio published by using the instances.
“definitely locate it somewhere else. You aren’t going to discover it from me or taking my element away,” she stated.
Following the instances document, ESPN benched Nichols all through 2021 NBA Finals coverage. After a brief hiatus, she resumed web website hosting “The bounce.”
After the audio of her comments surfaced, Nichols apologized to Taylor on air.
Taylor left ESPN in advance this year after she failed to acquire an agreement extension with the community.
She joined NBC sports activities and became a number and correspondent within the course of the summer Olympic video games in Tokyo.
Disclosure: CNBC parent NBCUniversal owns NBC Sports and NBC Olympics. NBC Olympics is the U.S. broadcast rights holder to all summertime and winter games thru 2032.
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