Like so many basketball fans, I was downright delighted in 2024 when ESPN saved Inside the NBA from cancellation by forging a historic licensing agreement with TNT. It’s because of that deal that Ernie Johnson, Charles Barkley and co. remain on the air this fall amid the 2025 TV schedule. There have been pain points, though, particularly when it comes to the beloved show’s new schedule, which sees episodes air less frequently. I haven’t been too pleased with this, but the network’s head honcho just shared an excellent update.
At this point, Inside the NBA’s schedule for the 2025-2026 season is locked up and, as of this writing, the show’s last episode aired on November 12. Unfortunately, it won’t return until Christmas Day, at which point Ernie Johnson and co. will help cover the swath of holiday games. That’s still about a month away, though, which is disappointing, considering Inside used to air on a weekly basis. ESPN president Burke Magnus recently addressed the reason for the longer gaps between episodes:
There’s a certain number of times we can schedule Inside the NBA over the course of the NBA season. There’s also a provision that called for the vast majority of them to be after Jan. 1, which I’m not entirely sure what was behind that from a Turner perspective.
So this is an interesting wrinkle, as it seems Turner Broadcasting – the longtime owner of the Inside brand – enacted a stipulation that triggered the show’s hiatuses on ESPN. On that note, it would appear the Disney-owned sports brand is limited in how often it can broadcast the basketball series. That is, it’s limited for right now, at least. While appearing on SI Media With Jimmy Traina, Magnus explained that he envisions changes being made to Inside’s schedule as time goes on:
But, nonetheless, I’m pretty confident that once we get through this first season, that’s a conversation we’re going to be able to have that will allow for more flexibility, more regularity throughout the season from beginning to end. Again, put it in the column of, we had to get up and running, we had to establish this trust between the two sides, which I think is coming really quickly. And I think that will be fertile ground for conversation for next season.
This is exactly the kind of update I’ve been hoping for, and the exec’s comments make sense. Overall, ESPN’s main priority early on had to be the act of actually acquiring Inside the NBA and formulating some kind of initial schedule for it. The powers that be can now use this season to see what works and what doesn’t and evaluate ratings to map out a schedule with even more episodes down the road. Burke Magnus doubled down on his hopes for a better schedule, and he seems to be speaking the fans’ language:
I do appreciate, and I want everyone to know that we do recognize that that’s an imperfect situation from our perspective. We would rather have it be more regular throughout the season, so if that’s getting the ability to do it more than the contract says in terms of the total amount of episodes or whether it’s to take the ones that we have and spread them more evenly over the course of the season, those are two ways we can go at it. But that is something we will get into for next year, I’m positive.
Until then, a silver lining to this situation is that, as the exec mentioned, Inside episodes will air more frequently this season after January 1. The show will also air in tandem with the now (mostly) Stephen A. Smith-less NBA Countdown. By all accounts, the former TNT show’s transition to ESPN has been fruitful, and even Charles Barkley has been complimentary of the network after expressing some concerns early on. Here’s hoping the network is able to continue to work out the scheduling-related kinks accordingly.