The NBA is the biggest basketball league in the world, and obviously, the broadcasting of games needs to be top-notch. ESPN has several shows that have kept fans engaged with great takes and entertainment. Rachel Nichols’ ‘The Jump’ was one of those shows.
For almost half a decade, Nichols did a great job of keeping the fans entertained with her analysis of the NBA on ESPN’s The Jump. However, her controversial remarks about her colleague Maria Taylor led to the show getting canceled.
Nichols was thoroughly berated by NBA fans for those controversial comments about her colleague. Following her exit from ESPN and being a victim of the cancel culture, not many thought that she would get another great job with a broadcasting network. But thanks to Matt Barnes, Rachel Nichols’ career was saved. Last year, Nichols landed a job with Showtime as a multi-platform host and producer.
Matt Barnes On Why He Invited Rachel Nichols On His Podcast
Since retiring from the NBA, Matt Barnes has done a great job with the ‘All The Smoke’ podcast. After Nichols’ exit from ESPN, Barnes gave her an opportunity to share her side of the story on an episode of the podcast. Nichols used the opportunity to explain the reason behind her infamous exit from ESPN.
On that note, Barnes recently revealed he risked his job with ESPN by inviting Nichols on his podcast, but he did it anyway.
(Starts at 0:55)
“It’s a dirty business. You know what I mean? When you find out what happened, it’s just like, oh s**t damn. … It was crazy because, obviously, I’m also employed by ESPN. It’s not like I was ever gonna play a corporate-type role, but I can’t let you just throw dirt on certain people. I’m going to keep it business, but I’m also going to keep it real. I had a lot of love for Rachel. I had to talk to some ESPN people after that and it wasn’t crazy. It was kind of like give us more of a heads up.
If Rachel telling her truth on my show was going to cost me my job, I would have took that. Because that’s how to me how dope she was. How opening she was. How important and instrumental she was to me. … So once I found out like what really happened I was like, damn this is sticky but at the same time, I felt like I gotta let my sister talk and it was gonna cost me my job.”
It’s good to know that Barnes supported Nichols when she needed him the most, albeit at the risk of losing his job. He didn’t take a step back and still invited her to his podcast and allowed her to freely share her side of the story about what really happened.
We sincerely appreciate and respect you as a reader of our site. It would help us a lot if you follow us on Google News because of the latest update.
Thanks for following us. We really appreciate your support.
