Explaining What Will Happen to 'Inside The NBA' With TNT Losing NBA Rights

What will happen to 'Inside The NBA' after TNT loses NBA broadcasting rights?

The most popular studio show in sports will no longer be broadcast on TNT / NBA on TN

NBA fans' favorite studio show, Inside The NBA featuring Ernie Johnson, Shaq, Charles Barkley, and Kenny Smith, is entering a new era.

The conclusion of last year's Eastern Conference finals marked the last Inside The NBA show to be broadcast on TNT. The network had broadcast NBA games for over 30 years, but the league negotiated a new media rights deal that will kick in starting this season. TNT is not included. Instead the NBA will be shown on ESPN, ABC, NBC, and Amazon Prime; the TNT age has come to a close.

Instead, Inside The NBA is moving to ESPN. Here's how it will all work.

Is 'Inside The NBA' ending?

To put it simply: no. Inside The NBA will not end now that TNT no longer has broadcast rights for the NBA. Last year was not the final time Shaq, Chuck, Ernie, and The Jet will grace your television screen. It was the last time they'll do so on a TNT broadcast.

You will see Inside The NBA covering the 2025-26 season when it kicks off in October. It'll just be a little different.

What will happen to 'Inside The NBA' next season?

Inside The NBA is moving to ESPN.

Beginning with opening night of the 2025-26 season, Inside The NBA will be broadcast on ESPN. But it is not being produced by ESPN. Instead, the four-letter network is licensing the rights to broadcast the show, while TNT will continue to produce it in-house in the network's famed Atlanta studios (with on-location sets serving as an exception). All the good-byes that happened at the end of the Eastern Conference finals were send-offs for the TNT era, but not for the studio show.

Will 'Inside The NBA' change at ESPN?

From the sounds of it, the show will not change all that much.

ESPN licensing the show while TNT produces means ESPN will likely not change the format or the cast of the program. President of content Burke Magnus said outright in November they do not want to change the show, and chairman of the network Jimmy Pitaro effectively confirmed as much in May. The deal to broadcast Inside The NBA is more like ESPN's deal to broadcast the Pat McAfee Show, which does not include any editorial power from the network. Instead, ESPN's side of the deal is to merely give the show a platform.

"The show, which has won 21 Sports Emmy Awards, will appear on ESPN and ABC surrounding high-profile live events, including ESPN's pregame, halftime and postgame coverage of the NBA Finals on ABC, conference finals, NBA playoffs, all ABC games after Jan. 1, Christmas Day, opening week, the final week of the season and other marquee live events," the statement read.

The biggest change coming will be the schedule of when Inside The NBA is broadcast. They had a consistent rotation for many years at TNT, broadcasting during multiple nights of the week throughout the year and into the playoffs. The ESPN schedule for the show is a bit different, as the network revealed a few weeks before opening tip-off.

Inside The NBA will air twice during opening week, on October 21 and October 23 as ESPN launches the new season. But from then on, appearances are sporadic. In total there are only nine Inside The NBA broadcasts scheduled for the first half of the season before the All-Star break. It isn't quite the frequency fans are accustomed to.

But the second half of the year is closer to the old standard. There will be 11 shows from Febuary 20 until the end of the season in April.

It will be different to see the crew on ESPN and less often than in past years. But Inside The NBA should still deliver the same level of laughs and fun they did for all those years at TNT.

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