When the 2024 NBA Finals between the Boston Celtics and Dallas Mavericks begin on Thursday night, ABC/ESPN’s Doris Burke will be making history of her own.
Burke, who was named to the lead NBA broadcasting crew for ABC/ESPN ahead of the 2023–24 season, is officially the first woman to call any major men’s championship in the United States in history.
The long-time reporter will join Mike Breen and J.J. Reddick courtside for the game as they’ve done throughout the entire NBA season.
Burke is set to work all of the NBA Finals games this season as ABC is the primary broadcaster for the games.
Tonight, Doris Burke is set to make history as the first woman to call any major U.S. men’s championship on TV. pic.twitter.com/jR7ujRJgq0
This isn’t the first time Burke’s name will be written in the history books. One of her other significant career moments came in 2017 when she was named a regular NBA game analyst for ESPN, making her the first woman to hold this position for a full season. She called the NBA Finals for ESPN Radio back in 2020, making her the first woman to do so.
On Monday, reports emerged that ESPN had won the Jason Kelce sweepstakes. The Athletic's Andrew Marchand reported the Worldwide Leader was to ink the former Philadelphia Eagles center to a deal that would add him to the Monday Night Countdown desk, the network's pregame show for Monday Night Football. On Wednesday, Kelce responded.
Sitting virtually across from his brother Travis on their latest episode of New Heights, Kelce made sure to say right off the bat that these reports are not yet set in stone. He has not put any pen to paper. With that out of the way the former All-Pro waxed poetic about how much of an honor it would be to work for ESPN, the very same network that he and Travis watched every single day as burgeoning sports junkies when they were young.
"Nothing's been offically inked yet or announced yet, but obviously there's been a lot of reports out there about me going to ESPN," Kelce said. "I think time will take care of that. But it's a tremendous honor to be considered to potentially work there. That network was everything Travis and I watched growing up.
"We talk about it all the time. We had Rich Eisen on here last year on the show. We talk about all these guys we grew up watching. We lived watching ESPN. SportsCenter, before phones, that was the only way to get all the coverage. We were glued to the TV each and every day. The fact that I may, potentially, probably, will be working there is pretty darn cool, man."
Between these comments and the previous reports it is all but certain Kelce will be on our televisions next fall, and he's clearly very excited about it. As are we all.
Kelce's magnetic personality is going to make him a quick television star, and the sky is the limit if he learns how to leverage his extensive football knowledge into engaging monologues for the audience. He probably won't be asked to do a ton on Monday Night Countdown, which is just as much about recapping the previous weekend's action as it is analyzing the game ahead.
But there will be plentiful opportunities for Kelce to flex some broadcasting muscle by doing the same thing that made New Heights popular: be a large, gregarious man who loves the game of football. And he also happens to be the brother of Taylor Swift's boo.
It will be fascinating to watch his career unfold. Until then, ESPN should rest easy knowing they're likely landing someone who appreciates what it means to work there.
ESPN's public relations department issued a statement on Saturday afternoon denying a report that Milwaukee Bucks guard Patrick Beverley was banned from network programming.
The report, which came from Michael McCarthy of Front Office Sports Friday, indicated that Beverley had been banned from appearing on any ESPN shows after the Bucks guard ejected network producer Malinda Adams from his postgame media availability on Thursday night.
"There was an erroneous report that suggested Patrick Beverley was banned from appearing on ESPN. He isn't banned and never was," the statement from the network said Saturday.
Beverley's verbal altercation with Adams came after she admitted to the Bucks guard that she did not subscribe to his podcast.
Beverley's behavior during the media scrum, as well as during the game when he threw a ball at a group of Pacers fans behind the Milwaukee bench twice, was widely criticized in the aftermath of Milwaukee's elimination from the playoffs.
Beverley apologized to Adams on Friday, she said in a post on X (formerly Twitter) Friday.
There is no word yet on any discipline for Beverley from the NBA regarding either of the two incidents.
1. The Los Angeles Lakers are one of the most iconic franchises in all of sports. The news of who will get their head-coaching job is big. It’s important. It’s significant.
For sports media nerds like myself, though, the subplot to the Lakers' coaching job is much more fascinating. And that subplot is the battle between ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski and The Athletic’s Shams Charania.
There isn’t a reporter vs. reporter duel that gets more attention from sports fans than Woj vs. Shams.
The Woj vs. Shams grudge match came to the forefront early Thursday morning when Wojnarowski broke the news that the Lakers are targeting UConn’s Danny Hurley as their next head coach.
BREAKING: The Los Angeles Lakers are targeting Connecticut’s Dan Hurley to become the franchise’s next coach and are preparing a massive, long-term contract offer to bring the back-to-back national champion to the NBA, sources tell ESPN. pic.twitter.com/6WPrigPvAW
Now, at the end of the day, who breaks the news is hardly that important. There’s no shame in Shams getting this one wrong. Sometimes sources aren’t accurate or a team changes its mind. Basically, s--- happens.
What made this particular Woj vs. Shams incident stand out is that ESPN’s biggest gun, Adam Schefter, even weighed in to send a message, whether it was intended or not.
“Hurley has been at the forefront of the Lakers’ search from the beginning of the process,” per Woj. https://t.co/Sbs5yzXS1d
Again, whether intended or not, that sentence about Hurley being at the forefront of the search from the beginning is a direct shot at Shams.
Like I said, who ultimately breaks the news of the Lakers' next coach isn’t going to change anything. But Woj coming in to throw a bomb all over Shams's earlier report makes for very entertaining tweets and memes.
2. A brand-new episode of SI Media With Jimmy Traina dropped this morning and it features an interview with The Athletic’s Andrew Marchand, who shares information and gives updates on the biggest news in sports media.
Topics covered include the latest developments with the NBA's future TV deals with ESPN, NBC and Amazon and where things stand with Warner Bros. Discovery/TNT. Marchand also reveals what he thinks NBC's plan is for a lead broadcast team, what will happen with the Inside the NBA crew of Ernie Johnson, Charles Barkley, Kenny Smith and Shaquille O'Neal, whether Barkley could end up at ESPN and why the relationship between TNT and the NBA deteriorated.
Following Marchand, Sal Licata from WFAN and SNY joins me for our weekly "Traina Thoughts" segment. This week's topics include new sports TV shows that are on the radar and the Yankees' dominance. Plus, we read the latest Apple reviews for SI Media With Jimmy Traina.
3. In Tuesday’s Traina Thoughts, I wrote about the ridiculous notion by some people that you need to know about the WNBA’s history in order to opine on the WNBA.
Just as nonsensical as that take is this take.
Hope all the “just talking heads” are tuned into @WNBA games tonite and tomorrow and the next nite and so on…..so they can equip themselves with a deeper sense of this league. And all of these opinions are great but let it come from watching the entire league.
Nope. You absolutely do not have to watch non–Caitlin Clark WNBA games if you do not want to. No sports fan or talking head has to watch anything they are not interested in. You are not required to have a “deeper sense of the league” to opine on general topics in any sport.
4. Pat McAfee WAS a punter, so it’s not totally shocking he’d have a good leg, but this was a hell of a pass.
5. If you missed the news last week, it was announced that ESPN sold two college football playoff games to TNT. College football released its postseason schedule on Wednesday and now we know why ESPN would pass up on airing a pair of playoff games.
On Saturday, Dec. 21, TNT will air two first-round playoff games at noon and 4 p.m. ET.
It just so happens that two NFL games will take place at the same time.
Texans at Chiefs will air at 1 p.m. ET on NBC while the Steelers visit the Ravens at 4:30 p.m. on Fox.
OFFICIAL RELEASE: The College Football Playoff has announced dates, kick times and broadcast information for the 2024-25 playoff, the first year of the expanded 12-team format.
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) June 5, 2024
7. RANDOM VIDEO OF THE DAY: The longtime ABC news program, 20/20, debuted on this date in 1978. This seems like the perfect reason to post this clip that every old-school wrestling fan knows well.
