NEW YORK — Ever since ESPN made its historic trade for TNT Sports’s Inside the NBA, questions have lingered about whether one or more of the current cast will jump ship before next season.

But here’s some good news for fans: ESPN boss Jimmy Pitaro expects the Beatles of basketball to stay together when TNT licenses their iconic show to ESPN next season.

“I have not heard any false notes. My understanding is we’re keeping the band together,” Pitaro told Front Office Sports during a press briefing last week.

Pitaro would know. Back in November, he and TNT Sports CEO Luis Silberwasser pulled off one of the most memorable swaps in sports media history.

With TNT losing its U.S. media rights after a 35-year relationship with the league, Inside the NBA was on the brink of cancellation. That’s when Pitaro swooped in with an offer: ESPN would trade an exclusive slate of Big 12 football and men’s basketball games to TNT in return for the licensing rights to the show. Silberwasser agreed—on the condition that TNT would retain full editorial control, the foursome would remain TNT employees, and the show would continue to be produced out of its long-time studio in Atlanta.

And so the deal was sealed, saving arguably the greatest sports studio show in history, with 21 Sports Emmys and counting. But the cast felt left out and bruised by essentially being traded just like the players they talk about. For months, there was will-they-or-won’t-they speculation about whether they’d show up on the set this fall, or hold out for some of that sweet Disney cash.

That situation has settled down in recent months. Barkley is still under contract to TNT under a mammoth 10-year, $210 million extension signed in 2022. FOS broke the news that Shaquille O’Neal had signed a long-term extension worth $15 million a year. Both Kenny Smith and host Ernie Johnson are expected to return as well, say sources.

The unpredictable Barkley is the wild card, of course. After months of bashing his bosses at TNT parent Warner Bros. Discovery for bungling the NBA negotiations, he’s now daring ESPN to fire him before he ever appears on its air. Barkley has also publicly warned ESPN that he will say whatever he wants on the show. He continues to rip ESPN talents like Kendrick Perkins. And forget about running through the legendary ESPN “car wash” of studio shows like SportsCenter.

“I’m not going to change my personality. Ain’t nobody … they can’t fire me. I make too much money to get fired. So they can’t fire me. First of all, if they fire me, they got to pay me for seven years, and I’m going to quit way before then. But if they want to fire me, I would love for them to do that,” Barkley said on OutKick’s “Don’t @ Me with Dan Dakich.

For more on how ESPN is preparing for Inside the NBA, read Michael McCarthy’s full story here.

2.7 million

That was the average viewership for the WNBA showdown between Caitlin Clark’s Fever and Angel Reese’s Sky on Saturday. That makes it the most-watched regular-season WNBA game ever on ESPN platforms. Viewership, which peaked at 3.1 million viewers, was up 115% from last season’s regular-season average on ABC.

• On Tuesday, Netflix will premiere the new sports documentary, Untold: The Fall of Favre, from EverWonder Studio, Time Studios, and Front Office Sports. We previewed the doc and thought it was outstanding. Read our review here.
• Longtime BBC soccer commentator Gary Lineker has left the network after anti-Israel posts on social media.
• Tony Reali spoke to The Washington Post about the end of ESPN’s Around the Horn. The final episode of the show will air this Friday.
• Knicks fans harassed ESPN NBA reporter Brian Windhorst after the team defeated the Celtics to reach the Eastern Conference finals.

“I’m actually most mystified by the fact that you’d take a brand lots and lots of people know about and discard it in an era when it’s just hard to ever achieve that level of scale again, let alone favorability.”

—Former ESPNer Pablo Torre to New York magazine on ESPN’s decision to cancel Around the Horn after 23 years and more than 4,900 episodes.

Readers responded strongly to our Friday night scoop that ESPN was not extending the contract of soccer legend Julie Foudy after 20 years. James Dunton warned on X/Twitter: “Big mistake ESPN…”

Steve Benson was outraged by the decision to drop Foudy, tweeting: “That’s horrible.  She’s a fantastic color commentator/analyst for both men’s and women’s soccer matches. IMHO, she’s better at in-stadium analysis than [Taylor] Twellman and better at in-studio analysis than [Alexi] Lalas.  ESPN is foolish to [cut] ties with her.”

Andrea Yoch tweeted, “What a shame. She’s the best.”

But theObstructedViewer noted Foudy still calls games and works as a studio analyst on TNT Sports’s soccer coverage: “She’s a fixture on the TNT/Max telecasts. When’s the last time she was on ESPN?”