NBA Insider Adrian Wojnarowski gave us one last Woj Bomb announcing his retirement. Peter Klein broke down what this means for the NBA media industry
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00:00As Toxic brought up in the chat, it is crazy that Adrian Wojnarowski, Woj, has announced
00:16his retirement.
00:17The last Woj bomb is that he is leaving the broadcasting and journalism world after like
00:2330 bajillion years in covering everything.
00:26He is off to be a general manager with Bonaventure's men's basketball team, and honestly, when
00:32I saw that he was going to be a general manager for a college basketball team, a number of
00:39things went through my mind.
00:41One, college basketball teams have general managers now?
00:44Two, I was like, oh, that's a little weird that he's going to do both, but I guess he
00:48can.
00:49Like, he's very good at what he does.
00:50And then you see the retirement, and it's like, ah, no, he's not going to do both.
00:54He is, in fact, just doing the one thing, so it really is the end of an era when it
01:01comes to this sort of a thing.
01:03He has been one of the gold standards for insider reporting, not just in basketball,
01:11but really in all of sports.
01:13When you look at this latest kind of era in sports journalism and broadcast journalism
01:20and the, I guess, I don't want to say added influence, because insiders have always had
01:26influence.
01:28I think we have more of them, and because of the reach of social media, we have access
01:32to them very, very quickly.
01:33And so that has been something that has been really interesting to see.
01:37And Woj was one of the first ones who you had to mute on draft day, because he was like
01:42eight picks ahead.
01:44You'd be watching in the first round, and he's already off in the 2025 draft.
01:51He's way over there.
01:53The guy was unbelievable at his job, and again, one of the gold standards in this industry.
02:00And now, I don't want to say leaves a giant hole, because there's actually a couple.
02:04He had amazing competition with Shams, who I would imagine ESPN is going to be courting
02:10rather aggressively.
02:12For ESPN, they do have Zach Lowe, who seems relatively connected as well.
02:17I do think that, I guess, I don't want to speak for Zach Lowe.
02:20I've never met the guy.
02:21I really enjoy his podcast, by the way, once you're done listening to my podcasts, of course.
02:27One of the best basketball podcasts out there.
02:28And he strikes me as someone who likes a bit more of the basketball analysis standpoint
02:36than the insidery stuff, although he is, I think, relatively connected, and does quite
02:42well with the insidery stuff as well.
02:44Ramona Shelburne, she tends to break the bit more serious, newsy type stuff, but she's
02:50very connected with the Los Angeles Lakers.
02:53She was very well connected with Kobe Bryant, and so I do think that that can kind of spite
02:58her off.
02:59But a very interesting hole that is left now at ESPN, and in the basketball world in general.
03:06Shams is just ready.
03:07He is ready to go and take this one over, and I would imagine ESPN throws a relatively
03:12hefty contract at him.
03:15But yeah, this is, it's been kind of an interesting time in media.
03:19Yahoo taking another go at sports with bringing Ariel Helwani on for, and all of his buddies,
03:26for enhanced MMA coverage.
03:28They bring in KOC from the Ringer for their NBA coverage.
03:32You have Woj leaving.
03:34The Ringer is always, I think, very good at hiring.
03:37The Athletic is always so good, and I wonder if they get an NBA insider that kind of wiggles
03:42the airway into a little bit more of this space, and then Shams is Shams.
03:48So it is a very interesting time in the sports media landscape, and so, and you know, hopefully
03:56there's room for stuff like this, and stuff like Game Over that I do as well.
03:59By the way, subscribe over to the Game Over Calgary channel right now.