About a year ago, Deadspin released a few snippets of Rachel Nichols on a hot mic complaining about being demoted from her NBA Finals coverage.
At the time, the story was sympathetic to Nichols and also pondered who was recording her without her permission.
Fast forward to today and the NY Times acquired the full 20+ minute recording of Nichols and explained how it caused a rift between her and Maria Taylor.
Nichols discussed her career on a phone call on July 13, 2020, with Adam Mendelsohn, the longtime adviser of the Los Angeles Lakers superstar LeBron James and James’s agent, Rich Paul.
“I wish Maria Taylor all the success in the world — she covers football, she covers basketball,” Nichols said in July 2020. “If you need to give her more things to do because you are feeling pressure about your crappy longtime record on diversity — which, by the way, I know personally from the female side of it — like, go for it. Just find it somewhere else. You are not going to find it from me or taking my thing away.”
In a recording of the video obtained by The New York Times, Nichols and Mendelsohn paused for a moment during the conversation after Nichols said she planned to wait for ESPN’s next move. Mendelsohn, who is white, then said: “I don’t know. I’m exhausted. Between Me Too and Black Lives Matter, I got nothing left.” Nichols then laughed.
Essentially what this is saying is that Nichols believed at the time that Taylor was getting jobs because she was black.
That is the crux of it, and you can’t really talk around it.
It makes it seem like Maria is a TOKEN and that she didn’t deserve the opportunity. Not surprisingly, this rubbed a lot of the black employees the wrong way.
Nichols says she has tried to apologize to Taylor, but Taylor isn’t responding to her calls or texts.
ESPN declined to say whether any employees were disciplined, and Nichols said that she was told that the “content of the conversation did not warrant any discipline.” The only person known to be punished Kayla Johnson, a digital video producer who told ESPN human resources that she had sent the video to Taylor. Johnson, who is Black, was suspended for two weeks without pay and later was given less desirable tasks at work.
On the preshow call involving the stars of the show and production staff in both Los Angeles and New York, Taylor insisted to an executive that she be able to conduct live interviews with sideline reporters. She also brought up the recorded phone conversation. Wojnarowski jumped in and called Nichols a bad teammate. Rose said that ESPN had asked a lot from Black employees over the past year but that he and other Black employees would extend their credibility to the company no longer.
Now that you understand what is going on behind the scenes, let me pull the curtain back for you a little more.
This is very important.
You have always been taught that media is supposed to be an unbiased and incorruptible entity that sole job is to present the news, the facts, and the truth.
That is a bunch of bullsh*t.
ESPN, like most media outlets, is BIG BUSINESS. They are owned by Disney, one of the biggest business conglomerates in the world.
Similar to the NFL, they don’t care about causes. They care about PR. I am not saying everyone there is racist or anything like that because no matter what company you work for, you are going to have a mix of people that are for and against you. What I am saying is the only color ESPN cares about is GREEN.
If black people can make them money, they are going to pay them.
What did Stephen A. Smith say?
Just in case some people think this isn’t real… Stephen has doubled down on this pic.twitter.com/i82TGpRsDp
— Tariq Nasheed 🇺🇸 (@tariqnasheed) July 1, 2021
As you can see from the NY Times article, unlike WOJ and Jalen Rose, Stephen A. isn’t taking sides because he is trying to protect his pockets.
ESPN in 2020 thrived off making money off Black Lives Matter and black voices, but as we get into the middle of 2021, that isn’t becoming as profitable anymore, so it is back to the status quo.
When it can’t make them money anymore, then it is of no interest to them. That is why they have decreased Maria Taylor’s contract offer from $5 million to $2 million, having a strong black voice isn’t helping the bottom line anymore.
There are hundreds if not thousands of black people who work for ESPN.
People that you never see on-air and sadly those are the people who are going to be affected by this in the short and long term. As you can see, the only person who was punished was a digital video producer trying to warn Taylor. She did the right thing and eventually left the company because of it.
This is a BIG BUSINESS.
The media is a DIRTY GAME.
People will try to you TAKE YOUR DOWN when you become too successful.
JEALOUSY AND ENVY are running rampant with the industry.
People who you think are your friends will STAB YOU IN THE BACK and plot your demise behind the scenes.
So, you better bundle up, no snuggie.
Flip the pages for the excerpts of Rachel Nichols speaking about Maria Taylor.