Iman Shumpert is quickly becoming one of TV’s most sought-after new voices after his standout NBA playoffs coverage for ESPN, showing how former players are stepping up and carving out big roles in the competitive world of basketball media.
—Michael McCarthy, Ryan Glasspiegel, and Eric Fisher
|
|
|
|
Gerald Leong / ESPN Images
|
The bright lights of the NBA playoffs can transform players and media into highly coveted talents. Just ask Iman Shumpert.
After Shumpert’s strong work for ESPN during NBA Finals and Western Conference finals coverage, the 35-year-old has become a sought-after free agent, sources tell Front Office Sports.
During ESPN’s NBA playoffs coverage, Shumpert paired with Vanessa Richardson for the Hoop Streams digital show across the ESPN app and social media platforms. Awful Announcing said Shumpert was “quietly the best analyst” of the Thunder-Pacers series.
“He was a revelation during the NBA Finals alongside Brian Windhorst on The Hoop Collective, and not in the ‘wow, this guy is entertaining’ way that often gets confused with substance,” wrote AA.
“No, Shumpert has been legitimately insightful, someone who actually enjoys talking about the game and, more importantly, knows how to talk about it well. That might sound like a low bar, but when you scroll through the usual suspects, it starts to feel like the bar’s buried six feet under.”
The 10-year NBA veteran—who won a title with LeBron James’s Cavaliers in 2016—previously won Season 30 of ABC’s Dancing with the Stars with dancer Daniella Karagach in 2021.
But ESPN probably won’t give up on the promising analyst without a fight. The former NBA star previously hosted Andscape’s seven-part documentary series, Taking One for the Team, on ESPN+ in 2024. As ESPN/ABC, NBC Sports, and Amazon Prime Video speed toward their first season of splitting up NBA game rights, there’s been a gold rush to hire the best hoops talents.
NBC has tapped Mike Tirico and Noah Eagle as its top play-by-play broadcasters. They’ll work with color commentators Reggie Miller and Jamal Crawford, studio analysts Carmelo Anthony and Grant Hill, studio host Maria Taylor, and front office insider Grant Liffmann. In the biggest move of the offseason, NBC landed the GOAT himself, Michael Jordan, as a special contributor.
Meanwhile, Jeff Bezos’s Prime has tapped Ian Eagle, Kevin Harlan, Michael Grady, and Eric Collins as play-by-play announcers. They will work alongside color commentators Steve Nash, Dwyane Wade, Candace Parker, Stan Van Gundy, Dell Curry, and Brent Barry, plus sideline reporters Cassidy Hubbarth, Allie Clifton, and Kristina Pink. Taylor Rooks will host Prime’s studio coverage, with analysts Blake Griffin and Dirk Nowitzki.
ESPN declined to comment on Shumpert.
|
|
|
|
|
MLB Network, NHL Network, and Amazon Prime Video sportscaster Adnan Virk has long been enamored with movies, and his book Cinephile, adapted from his long-running podcast, is slated to be released Aug. 26. Preordered copies will include a special section on what it was like to work for Vince McMahon at WWE.
Front Office Sports caught up with Virk to talk about how he landed interviews with A-listers like Robert De Niro, Margot Robbie, and Kevin Hart, as well as his thoughts on how hockey could grow in the United States, his public exit from ESPN in 2019, and whether he wants to continue his Cinephile pod.
Front Office Sports: Your background obviously is in sports. How do you land these A-list actors and actresses?
Adnan Virk: It’s an amazing journey for me, and you’re right, I’m very fortunate—I’ve always had two interests: sports and movies. To be able to do both has been quietly remarkable.
So, the way that Cinephile first began was I was working at ESPN. My buddy Dan Stanczyk and I were talking about doing a podcast. At the time, I was filling in on lots of ESPN Radio shows and I wasn’t able to land my own. I thought, Maybe I’ll just do a podcast. What if I do a movie pod?
So we ended up just launching it. Thank God, my buddy Pete Gianesini, who was running ESPN Radio at the time, liked it and gave it a platform. I’d appear on Mike & Mike or with Ryen Russillo and promote the pod.
We had guest bookers at ESPN. You use those four letters, and that’s able to bring in that kind of talent. Robert De Niro was promoting Hands of Stone, a boxing drama. Margot Robbie was promoting I, Tonya, the Tonya Harding biopic. Kevin Hart is a huge sports fan and avid ESPN fan. I was able to use the ESPN arm to get those kinds of interviews. It really worked out beneficial for both sides.
FOS: What was the most stunning thing that’s ever come out of an interview for you with a movie figure?
AV: Two things, one was with Billy Bob Thornton, who’s one of my favorite actors. I told my 17-year-old son he could pick out any movie to watch from my whole collection. Out of all the great films—Raging Bull, Taxi Driver, etcetera—he picks Deadpool. My favorite joke from the movie is when one character is virtually unintelligible, and Ryan Reynolds says, “Sorry, can you say that again? It’s been a while since I’ve seen Sling Blade.”
Sling Blade is one of my favorite movies. It’s of course a great indie sensation. It’s a story about a slow-witted guy and his adopted son. It’s this great Southern folklore; it feels like a story out of Faulkner. So when I interviewed Thornton, I’m telling him about how much I loved the movie.
He starts to say, “I don’t believe I’ve ever said this before publicly …” and I go, “Well, this has to be good …”
He told me that when they were shooting it, he didn’t realize how dire the situation with the film company [TSG Pictures] was in. “The company we were working for was broke,” Thornton said. “I didn’t know at the time how precarious the situation was. I assumed we had some money. But the company was, like, bankrupt. We literally had no money. If I had known that, there’s no way I could have gotten through the day. The movie almost didn’t happen.”
I had never heard that before, and the fact that he said it to me was really cool.
The other crazy thing that happened was with Robert De Niro. After the interview—he was good; Bob is famously taciturn, but he respected how much of a fan I am of him—he turned to me and said, “Pakistan?” In the interview, I had said to him that my favorite movie was Taxi Driver, even though I was born in 1978 and it came out in 1976. It was set in New York City; I grew up in Canada of Pakistani origin.
Bob remembered that and told me there was a great article I should read about the Hindu Kush, this tribe that lives in Pakistan. I’m like, “Uh-huh …” And he says, “If you’re having trouble finding it, let me know.”
I had to go to the Little League World Series that day, on assignment for my real job at ESPN, so as I’m driving I get an email that says, “From RDN’s office.” I pull over on 80 East, and it was from his assistant: “Hey, Bob, really enjoyed talking to you today. Here’s that article he mentioned about the Hindu Kush.”
I was floored. I’ve interviewed so many A-list celebrities I can’t count, but I can’t remember another time where they were thoughtful enough to say, “Hey, you might be interested in this.” I imagined De Niro in his helicopter making sure that the article got to me. It blew me away.
For more from Virk on hockey’s growth in the U.S., his ESPN exit, and what’s next for Cinephile, read the full interview here.
|
|
|
Denny Medley-Imagn Images
|
NFL owners have been informally told to be ready for a potential vote next month on a long-discussed acquisition of league media assets by ESPN parent company Walt Disney Co., Front Office Sports sources confirmed.
For four years, the league has considered selling in-house media holdings such as the NFL Network and NFL RedZone, among other properties, with Disney easily standing as the most engaged among major networks in the on-again, off-again process. The NFL, in turn, could also acquire an equity stake in ESPN, which would complete another long-planned initiative on the company’s side of the table to potentially bring in outside investors. It’s worth noting that longtime NFL RedZone host Scott Hanson signed a long-term extension to stay with the network.
If completed, the move would also give Disney and ESPN an important boost as the NFL is all but certain to opt out of its current domestic media-rights deals in 2029 and 2030.
ESPN, meanwhile, is preparing to debut its direct-to-consumer service, and having additional NFL content could provide a critical enhancement to that effort.
“This looks to be coming to a head, and there are some external reasons for that,” an FOS source said of the NFL.
A move to call a special league meeting outside of the typical cadence of gatherings among team owners is hardly unprecedented. In fact, it happened just a year ago as owners came together in August 2024 to approve the league’s formal entry into private equity. Other league sources, however, cautioned that nothing has been solidified this time around, and no supplemental meeting has yet been called.
Sports Business Journal initially reported the possibility of an additional meeting to address the NFL Media transaction.
|
|
|
|
Chapel Bill is back on.
A docuseries featuring Bill Belichick and North Carolina football is slated to be released on Disney’s Hulu streaming service, multiple sources told Front Office Sports.
The series will be produced by EverWonder Studio. EverWonder declined to comment; representatives for Disney and UNC did not respond to a request for comment. (RedBird IMI is the primary investor in both EverWonder and Front Office Sports.)
Sources say the two sides are finalizing the agreement, and early-stage production on the show has begun.
Belichick and UNC were previously slated to be featured on HBO’s Hard Knocks: Offseason, but the project fell through at the eleventh hour—reportedly, in part, due to creative differences involving Belichick’s girlfriend, Jordon Hudson.
It is not yet known what the new documentary will be called. A firm controlled by Hudson registered trademarks for phrases including “Chapel Bill (Bill’s Version),” “Do Your Job: (Bill’s Version),” and “No Days Off (Bill’s Version).”
After a media firestorm was ignited when Hudson interrupted a CBS interview Belichick was doing to support his book The Art of Winning, North Carolina hired former Bears PR man Brandon Faber.
Belichick is an eight-time Super Bowl champion—six as head coach of the Patriots, and two as defensive coordinator with the Giants—and is widely regarded as one of the greatest football coaches of all time. Football fans will likely be eager to see how much success he is able to achieve at the collegiate level.
North Carolina’s football games will primarily air on ESPN platforms, which have exclusive rights to the ACC. ESPN and Hulu are both owned by Disney.
|
|
|
|
- ESPN has dropped the trailer for The Kingdom, the new six-episode series about Patrick Mahomes’s Chiefs that debuts Aug. 14. The doc takes an inside look at Mahomes’s modern Chiefs dynasty, which has produced three Super Bowl championships and five appearances in the Big Games. The doc focuses on the team’s quest for a “three-peat” during the 2024 season. Here’s a sneak peek at the new doc produced by Words + Pictures in association with Skydance Sports, NFL Films, 2PM Productions, and Foolish Club Studios. The Chiefs have dethroned the Cowboys as America’s No. 1 TV team. We’ll see whether they can keep it going this season.
- Sinclair Broadcasting announced a new podcast with Candace Parker and Aliyah Boston, called Post Moves.
- The Philadelphia Inquirer reports the Phillies are averaging 325,000 viewers per game locally on NBC Sports Philadelphia and NBC10, 20% higher than the second-most-watched team in MLB, the Mets.
- FS1 host Colin Cowherd explained why a partnership with Barstool Sports “works” for Fox Sports.
- Fox Nation, the streaming service under the Fox News umbrella, acquired the rights for Hulk Hogan and Eric Bischoff’s Real American Freestyle wrestling league.
- ESPN has promoted Flora Kelly to SVP of ESPN Research.
|
|
|
254 billion
Nielsen’s figure for the number of ESPN and sports minutes watched on sister Disney network ABC during the first half of 2025. That was up 1%—and the most since 2016. ESPN posted an average per-minute audience of 712,000 viewers, up 4% from the year before and second best since 2017.
|
|
|
“And now, in 2025, it finally feels like we have gotten to a place in our country where people aren’t listening to those guys anymore. People aren’t listening, and they are kind of just telling them to shut up. I think that is so much better. Let people decide what they want to watch.”
—Barstool podcaster Brandon Walker, on how the Dave Portnoy and Barstool naysayers were powerless to block the partnership with Fox Sports.
|
|
|
Do you think NFL Media’s integration into ESPN platforms would be a good idea?
|
|
Thursday’s result: 24% of respondents are more interested in watching Fox’s “Big Noon Kickoff” with Dave Portnoy involved. 76% are less interested with him being involved.
|
|
|
