ESPN secondary reporter Rachel Nichols reports on the game during the third game of the 2021 NBA Western Conference Western Conference Finals on June 24, 2021 at the STAPLES Center in Los Angeles, California.
Jim Gates | National Basketball Association | Getty Images
ESPN will cancel its program hosted by Rachel Nichols and remove the journalist from NBA coverage for some time amid the continued reaction to race-related comments she made about former teammate Maria Taylor, the chain wednesday.
ESPN will release Nichols’ weekly show “The Jump,” and plans to replace it with new NBA content. It is unclear when the program will be released.
“We mutually agreed that this approach to our NBA coverage was best for everyone involved. Rachel is an excellent reporter, host, and journalist, and we thank her for her many contributions to NBA content.” said David Roberts, senior vice president of production at ESPN, said in a statement.
Nichols appeared Wednesday to confirm the cancellation of his show. In a tweet, he said, “The Jump was never built to last forever, but it sure was fun.”
She added: “More to come …”
A New York Times report in July revealed Nichols’ comments a year earlier to Adam Mendelsohn, an advisor to NBA superstar LeBron James, who made waves at the Walt Disney-owned company and the NBA world. .
In statements captured in the video without her knowing it, Nichols indicated that she believed Taylor was getting a job to host ESPN’s pre-game and post-game coverage of the 2020 NBA Finals because she’s black and the network was trying to improve the its diversity record.
“If you need to give her more things to do because you’re pushing for your long-standing history of diversity, which by the way, I know personally from a female perspective, like now, go for it,” Nichols said. . it is white, it is said in the audio published by the Times.
“You just have to find it somewhere else. You won’t find it or take it away from me,” he said.
After the Times report, ESPN replaced Nichols during coverage of the 2021 NBA Finals. After a brief hiatus, he re-organized “The Jump.”
After the audio of his comments appeared, Nichols apologized to Taylor on the air.
Taylor left ESPN earlier this year after failing to secure a contract extension with the network. He joined NBC Sports and hosted and hosted the Tokyo Summer Olympics.
Disclosure: NBCUniversal, which owns CNBC, owns NBC Sports and NBC Olympics. NBC Olympics is the holder of U.S. broadcast rights to all Summer and Winter Games until 2032.
– Steve Kopack of CNBC contributed to this report