The Tragic Details Of The Rachel Nichols Scandal

Sportscaster Rachel Nichols was a staple of ESPN's programming before her eventual and unfortunate exit from the network. She worked for the Worldwide Leader in Sports from 2004 to 2013, appearing frequently on "SportsCenter" and the network's pregame NFL coverage. After a brief stint at CNN, she returned to ESPN in 2016 to host her own show, "The Jump," where she covered the NBA.

On her program, Nichols hosted a daily discussion featuring former players like Tracy McGrady and Paul Pierce along with ESPN writers like Zach Lowe and Brian WIndhorst. "My elevator pitch for the show was 'it should feel like you're sitting around talking about basketball with your friends, but what if one of your friends was Tracy McGrady?" she said of the show to Forbes on its five-year anniversary in February 2021. Unfortunately for her, "The Jump" was canceled later that year due to racially-insensitive comments she made regarding Maria Taylor, another ESPN employee at the time. Nichols ultimately parted ways with the network and has struggled to regain a prestigious place in sports media since.

In March 2020, during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, the NBA season was put on pause. After four months, it resumed in late July at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex at Orlando's Walt Disney World, quickly dubbed the "NBA Bubble." Players, coaches, officials, and select media personnel sequestered themselves away to finish the 2019-20 NBA season in the midst of the pandemic.

Rachel Nichols quarantined at NBA Bubble to film "The Jump" onsite and be the sideline reporter for the 2020 NBA Finals. While isolating in Orlando before the season restarted, she was secretly and unwittingly recorded by another ESPN employee during a call with Adam Mendelsohn, an advisor to LeBron James and his agent, Rich Paul. The employee sent four video recordings to Deadspin in what they called an effort to "expose" Nichols as a "back-stabber." The outlet declined to publish the videos or detail what Nichols said but reported that the ESPN employee also sent the video to others in the company. ESPN released a statement on the matter, saying, "We are extremely disappointed about the leak of a private conversation. It's indefensible and an intrusion on Rachel's privacy."

The recording was almost certainly illegally captured. "Even if it was a one-party state, it seemed like neither Nichols nor Mendelsohn knew they were being recorded," Northeastern University attorney Matt Nett told the New York Post. "More than likely this video was captured illegally and distributed. She had a right to feel secure and that this conversation was private."

A year later, in July 2021, the New York Times published an expansive report on Rachel Nichols' comments on the aforementioned recording and internal strife at ESPN. The outlet obtained 20 minutes of leaked conversation from the 2020 recording between Nichols and Adam Mendelsohn. "I just want them to go somewhere else — it's in my contract, by the way; this job is in my contract in writing," Nichols said. She was referring to hosting duties for the NBA Finals pregame and halftime shows, which was done by Maria Taylor at a studio in New York as opposed to Nichols in the Bubble.

Nichols said ESPN was "feeling pressure" about diversity at the company, implying that Taylor, who is Black, was given the hosting duties over Nichols, who is white, because of her race. "I don't want to then be a victim of them trying to play catch-up for the same damage that affected me in the first place," Nichols said, alluding to the challenges women face in sports media. She was swiftly removed from ESPN and ABC's 2021 NBA Finals coverage, where she had been expected to participate in the sideline reporter role. 

The sportscaster continued to host "The Jump" during weekdays and delivered an on-air apology. "I also don't want to let this moment pass without saying how much I respect, how much I value our colleagues here at ESPN, how deeply, deeply sorry I am for disappointing those I hurt, particularly Maria Taylor, and how grateful I am to be part of this outstanding team," she said (via People). Taylor elected to not respond to Nichols attempts at apology via text and phone calls, which Nichols said "is completely fair and a decision I respect."

After the controversy surrounding Rachel Nichols' comments during the NBA Bubble, ESPN elected to cancel her show "The Jump." David Roberts, ESPN's senior vice president for production, released a statement on the cancellation (via CNBC). "We mutually agreed that this approach regarding our NBA coverage was best for all concerned. ... [W]e thank [Nichols] for her many contributions to our NBA content," he said. The network replaced the show with the similar program, "NBA Today," hosted by Malika Andrews, beginning just before the 2021-22 season. Sportscaster Maria Taylor's contract ended and she left for NBC, where she went on to host the network's "Sunday Night Football" coverage.

"Got to create a whole show and spend five years hanging out with some of my favorite people talking about one [of] my favorite things," Nichols said in a tweet after the cancellation. "'The Jump' was never built to last forever but it sure was fun." Nichols was removed from ESPN's NBA coverage entirely with a year left on her contract, and in early January 2022, she finalized her exit from the network.

Rachel Nichols spent the larger part of her career in sports journalism at ESPN, but she wasn't going to let their parting be the final chapter of her career. "I had the perspective and had always sort of seen it as, 'Yeah I'll work here for a while and then I'll work somewhere else,'" she told Dan Le Batard on a December 2023 episode of his "South Beach Sessions" podcast. "Because I worked other places before I got here and I'll work other places after I get here and that kind of thing."

She joined Showtime for a brief stint in September 2022, helping the network expand its NBA coverage. In 2023, she launched "Headliners with Rachel Nichols" on the network. Speaking to Deadline, Nichols said the show aimed to showcase NBA stars "that you can't, frankly, spend time with anywhere else" and offer viewers a "360-degree view of who a person is ... that you don't get from 6-second clips on Instagram." "The idea is that we're getting the best of the best, the most interesting people, the guys who have accomplished the most in the sport of basketball," she explained.

In June 2023, Nichols joined Monumental Sports Network to cover her hometown teams in Washington, D.C. She hosted "Hometown with Rachel Nichols" for the network where she interviewed D.C.-based players, coaches, and franchise owners. "So much sports coverage is being cut back these days; I love that Monumental is so enthusiastically expanding what fans get to see and experience," she wrote in a tweet announcing the career move.