“Inside the NBA” will be continuing after this season but perhaps not in the same exact format that everyone has grown accustomed to.
Former NBA guard and longtime “Inside the NBA” co-host Kenny Smith spoke this week in an interview with The New Yorker. During the interview, Smith made an interesting revelation about the future of the program for when it moves to ESPN. Smith noted that it is unclear exactly how long each show will be moving forward.
“We have the same crew of people doing the show,” said Smith. “But the timing: are we a half hour now? Are we forty-five minutes? Fifteen minutes? Those are the things that you can control when you own your I.P. [intellectual property]. But we don’t.
“That was the only part that made me uncomfortable and disheartened, because I felt that the four of us should have went into ABC to negotiate that deal,” Smith continued. I’m not saying that our executives don’t know how to do that, but we are the I.P. now. Ultimately, it’s a classic show, like ‘Seinfeld,’ so it will translate.”
These days, “Inside the NBA,” which has been on the air since 1989, generally runs for about 60 minutes (after the conclusion of an NBA game). But now that “Inside the NBA” is moving from his longtime home of TNT over to ESPN (as TNT is set to lose the rights to the NBA after this season), all bets appear to be off.
“Inside the NBA,” which has won 19 total Sports Emmy Awards over the years, has a real winning formula at this point that ESPN is unlikely to mess with too much. But a change in running time could be one of several more subtle changes that comes along with the program’s impending move away from TNT over to ESPN.
