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In September, Wojnarowski stunned the sports world when he announced his departure from ESPN and pivoted to college athletics. “I love my new job. Helping players grow as athletes and as people is incredibly rewarding,” he said. “St. Bonaventure changed my life. I was the first in my family to attend college, and this place gave me a foundation. Now, my job is to give back—whether it’s to our students, alumni, or community.” Though he remains connected with former colleagues in media, he says he has no regrets: “That chapter is closed. I loved working at ESPN, but this new role excites me in a completely different way.”
Brian Windhorst tried to make sense of that dynamic during a first look at his interview on the Sports Media with Richard Deitsch podcast. “There’s a couple of reasons. One, because Shams is basically the person of record — and Woj before him,” Windhorst said. “So, when Woj is in the same boat, so just assume when I say Shams, I also am talking about Woj, because they’re [interchangeable]. Their track record is spectacular. So when they say something, it is taken as record. They’re essentially the Clearinghouse of information. And also, it’s incredibly reliable that everybody in the world that need to know will know. “And in the case of contracts, it behooves the agents and the team sometimes to get it on the record, because it’s not finalized. And Shams and Adrian again — assume that I’m saying both – but Shams works extraordinarily hard. And so, when a transaction happens, he may be the first call, but he didn’t fall backwards into being the first call. He worked to get himself there. So, I can say in the year that I’ve worked with him, in fact, it’s been less than year — it’s been like nine months — I’ve called him or texted him with news tips dozens of times, and maybe twice he didn’t already know, or was somewhat was aware.”
Giannis Antetokounmpo: Does anyone else miss Woj?!
Nicolas Batum: I always say that Ty Lue saved my career. He did. Like, when I got waived—when Woj announced on Twitter—and I found out that way. Interviewer: Did you really? There was no heads-up? It was just— Nicolas Batum: I was in France, and that’s a true story. I was in France—so time difference—I was cleaning my living room and my son’s toys before putting him to bed, and my phone popped off. “V. Nick Batum got waived.” That’s how I found out. Interviewer: You’re like, “Nice business.” Nicolas Batum: Thank you. So now it’s funny, because I’m like, “Okay, I’m going to retire.” I pretty much thought I was done. I was like, who’s going to want me though, from that, at that time? And my phone started ringing—and yes, of course, the team that got the most interested in me was the Clippers. I got like everybody on the phone: Kawhi, PG, Ty Lue, Lawrence [Frank], Frank, Steve Ballmer—everybody. So I was like, “Why not?” Because I think our stories matched at that time: the bubble stuff, my season. So I was like, maybe get together.
Here’s the catch: Bryant is likely reporting the full extent of the contracts. When Flagg signed with New Balance last August, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reported the deal was “significant” and others stated it was a multiyear pact. The exclusive memorabilia deal he signed with Fanatics was reported to bring in “millions” earlier this year. It is likely that both contracts extend into his pro career. For example, Caitlin Clark signed with Nike while at Iowa before news broke around the WNBA Draft on an eight-year, $28 million contract.
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In an interview with CNBC’s Alex Sherman, Adam Schefter addressed the reporting around him potentially taking Adrian Wojnarowski’s job in addition to his NFL reporting duties, a role that was eventually filled with ESPN’s hiring of the top NBA insider on the market in Shams Charania. In fact, he could see a possibility where he could serve as an insider for all sports: “Oh, I actually think it’s very doable, very doable. I think that Woj’s skill – as a newsman, as an insider, you understand how the business works, and you understand the relationships that make it all possible. And big stories are big stories, whether they’re in football, basketball, baseball, hockey, golf, whatever it may be.”
Schefter talked about having “golden handcuffs on the football beat” which would seem to preclude him from taking on another full-time role at the network. “So I mean, again, those types of discussions did not come up. So it’s a moot point, but I thought about it, and I definitely think Woj – you know, Woj and I talked, and if Woj had waited until our contracts were up together, which we did our deals together, I would have been interested in that. But he went early. So it’s not feasible when, to your point, I’ve got the golden handcuffs on the football beat, and that’s what I was doing, if that makes sense.”
Players Health, a sports tech company providing digital risk-management services, reporting tools and insurance products to sports organizations, is adding an all-star name to its team. Longtime NBA insider Adrian Wojnarowski is serving as a brand ambassador for Players Health, joining the company’s NIL advisory board, he told SBJ. The arrangement began at the Final Four in San Antonio, where Wojnarowski appeared on behalf of the company and moderated a pair of panels during the Silver Waves Media Global NIL Conference. “I don’t know how we could compete right now without this,” he said, referencing the insurance policies Players Health has provided for the Bonnies.
Unlike Wojnarowski, who worked as a beat reporter at local newspapers before becoming an award-winning columnist, and Charania, who started trying to be an insider while still in high school, Fischer began his career hoping to write longform magazine features. “I never wanted to be an insider,” he said. Fischer scored an internship at Sports Illustrated in 2015 and stacked his portfolio with human interest articles. He got coffee with an NBA coach obsessed with Starbucks. He chronicled the rigorous routines that two over-40 players went through to stay on the court near the end of their careers. “I made all these relationships around the NBA by writing these non-threatening stories,” he said.
Woj noted that his daily routine hasn’t changed much. "I’m probably on my phone just as much, but now I’m having different conversations. In some ways, my job hasn’t slowed down because there’s a lot of work in this role—it’s a new job with new challenges and learning experiences. But many of the skills and relationships I built at ESPN carry over here. I spent the last 30 years talking daily with coaches, players, and agents, and that remains the same. I still talk to all those people, just in a different way. Gathering information is a big part of this job—understanding the players you want to recruit, learning everything about them, and ensuring the right fit between them and our program."
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Shams Charania, who was once his protégé and later his rival in breaking major NBA news, took his place at ESPN. “Yes, the world moves on without you. He’s doing great, he’s hardworking, and I hope he has a career as fulfilling as mine has been. ESPN is an incredible place to work, with immense resources and great people. I hope he enjoys it there as much as I did.”
$17,675: The amount of money generated thus far in auctions staged by former ESPN journalist Adrian Wojnarowski, now the GM of the St. Bonaventure men’s basketball team. The auctions held on the new Daps Bounty platform were largely former iPhones and NBA event credentials he used while still at ESPN. Wojnarowski is still accepting bids for video calls and dinners with him. The money will go to St. Bonaventure’s NIL (name, image, and likeness) program. The move was the latest in a series of unconventional efforts by Wojnarowski and the Bonnies to raise additional funds in a college basketball landscape increasingly dominated by power-conference schools.
When the rest of the world was dealing with the repercussions of the seismic trade that sent Luka Dončić from the Mavericks to the Lakers in exchange for Anthony Davis, it couldn’t have been less on Wojnarowski’s radar. “I was going to bed and got a couple text messages from a couple people in the NBA. I looked. I saw it. I shut my phone off, and I went to sleep,” Wojnarowski said with a chuckle. “We had a big recruiting visit coming that I was planning ... and that was my focus. “There'll be other big trades and free-agent signings and hirings and firings, and I'll be focused on my job.”
Between texts, calls, emails and social media, Wojnarowski went through his phones faster than the average person. But when it came time for a new phone, he was “negligent” about sending his old phone back in for a rebate. Thus, a stack of old phones piled up in his home office. It wasn’t until he dropped his final Woj bomb in September, announcing his retirement from ESPN, when the idea of selling his phones materialized at the suggestion of his agents. “I can't tell you, it was by great design that I held on to them,” Wojnarowski said. “Because if I was really smart about it, I would have kept my Blackberries around.” One of the other reasons why Wojnarowski went through phones so quickly is that unlike many other news breakers in the industry, he didn’t use a second phone. He had a backup, as a precautionary measure, but seldom needed it. “Adam (Schefter) was really adept at using two phones,” Wojnarowski said of ESPN's NFL reporter. “I was not adept at it. It always felt confusing to me.”
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