published on in gacor

How Brittney Griners regular-season return will look and feel on ESPN

There was no playbook to follow — how could there be? —  so Sara Gaiero had to create one. As the coordinating producer for ESPN’s WNBA coverage, it was up to Gaiero to figure out the best course of action for her network to telecast Brittney Griner’s first regular-season game following her 10 months behind bars in Russia.

Advertisement

Griner’s return to the court (alongside Hall of Famer-to-be Diana Taurasi) comes Friday in Los Angeles when her Phoenix Mercury play the Sparks at 11 p.m. ET. The game will air on ESPN and be simulcast on ESPN+. Mark Jones, Rebecca Lobo and Holly Rowe will call the game. ESPN will offer a WNBA Finals-level production arsenal — more than a dozen cameras — to document Griner’s first two games. (ESPN will also air Phoenix’s game against Chicago on Sunday at 4 p.m.)

When ESPN first learned the date of Griner’s return game, Gaiero said ESPN’s programming department immediately started working with the WNBA to ensure the game would air on ESPN. The company worked internally to figure out where to slot the game given a very busy stretch of properties (they’re airing both the NBA and NHL’s Western Conference finals) during the month. The WNBA ended up modifying the start time for ESPN to make things work. Said Gaiero: “We knew right away this was a game we needed to produce.”

Gaiero said that ESPN’s focus will be on Griner’s return to the court and celebrating that occurrence. They will not go heavy in-game on her wrongful detainment in Russia but rather what her return means for the Mercury and the league. SportsCenter also assigned reporter Michele Steele to cover Griner and the Mercury onsite in the lead-up to the opener.

“The focus that we talked about is celebrating her return,” Gaiero said. “This is a circumstance that we’ve never faced before. The best part about what we’re challenged to do is focus on Brittney is back playing basketball, and that’s where she belongs, and that’s what she is great at. What I’ve challenged and talked with our production team about is, let’s document that. Let’s document her being back playing basketball. We’re not going to get deep into the past and the detainment. We will obviously incorporate it in some capacity within our storyline coverage that night. But the focus is on BG is back and let’s celebrate that.”

Advertisement

There is no pregame coverage, so that presents additional duties for Lobo and Rowe, who will likely end up carrying the navigation of Griner’s time in Russia and how that impacts her return mentally and physically. The game producer is Ian Gruca and director is Adam Bryant. Both have experience working WNBA and NBA games for the company. ESPN requested a one-on-one interview with Griner, and that’s a non-starter at the moment as she’s not doing one-on-ones. (She is working on a memoir.) They’ve also requested non-on-air camera time with Griner and may get that.

“I am thrilled to get to call the game,” Lobo said. “I think everyone in the women’s basketball community hurt for her last year and felt the weight of her absence. We experienced incredible relief and joy when she was released. I’m eager to see how the Sparks interact with her, although they saw her last week, and how the L.A. fans respond to her on Friday and Phoenix fans respond on Sunday as well.

“As far as her play on the court, I think people will be giving her the grace she deserves after being out so long. Many people will be watching the game just because of BG and may be watching the WNBA for the first time. We understand our audience dynamic may be different than usual, but I don’t think that will impact how we call the game.”

go-deeper

GO DEEPER

Brittney Griner only plans to play overseas in Olympics

Mercury coach Vanessa Nygaard said in an interview Wednesday that she welcomed the added media covering Griner this season because it has a chance to bring more people to the league. But, she said, the team will be vigilant about making sure Griner is comfortable with the requests.

“This is a person who has gone through something extremely traumatic,” Nygaard said. “We need to support her physical return, but also her mental return to the game. We all experienced the amount of media we saw as a team last year, which was a lot of outside media that we don’t typically get in women’s basketball. BG didn’t experience that. I keep telling her when we go to the city and it’s our first game there, that’s going to be a BG game just like it was for us last year. This year it’ll be filled with joy and our W fans are going to be excited to see her wherever we go. So that’s going to be great. I think just controlling her availability and then using the rest of our staff, myself included, to kind of take a little bit of that pressure off of her.”

Advertisement

The WNBA’s viewership will be a story to watch this season, and Griner’s return is likely to add a boost. The 25 games across ESPN platforms in 2022 averaged 372,000 viewers, a 20 percent increase over 2021. It was the most-viewed regular season since 2008.

“I think the momentum coming off of our women’s college basketball coverage has laid the foundation right to what I do expect to see will be an increase of viewership of the WNBA this summer,” Gaiero said. “We saw it a little bit with the WNBA Draft. It was the second most viewed draft since 2004. It’s about storylines and particularly with women viewers and casual viewers, what the research has proven is they are here for the range of quality storytelling. What do you need to know about these players? We are going to lean into the super-team narrative and that’s going to drive interest. We can also pivot. We may be talking about New York and Vegas, but then don’t forget about Washington. They’re going to be outstanding this year. Obviously, Phoenix is a big story.

“Then there’s what also makes the W special — fashion, culture, social justice. We have experts who can give you analysis and breakdowns in a way that casual fans can understand. And with the addition of our WNBA Countdown pre-game shows this year, we have the space to have conversations as well as features to showcase all these athletes.”

Episode 302 of the Sports Media Podcast features Mark Shapiro, the president and COO of Endeavor, the Hollywood entertainment and sports giant. In this podcast, Shapiro discusses what makes someone a differentiator in sports media talent in 2023; why WWE was the right property for Endeavor; the domestic rights deals for WWE’s Raw and Smackdown programming coming up in 2024; how the WWE can expand within the Endeavor ecosystem; working with WWE CEO Nick Khan; how Mark sees the legacy companies heavily into sports streaming; Netflix becoming part of the sports ecosystem; the nexus of sports gambling and media; the strategies Apple, and Amazon have used in sports; why Adam Silver is in such an advantageous position with the upcoming NBA rights negotiation; the upcoming College Football Playoff negotiation; how ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro recalibrated ESPN’s relationship with the NFL; the explosive growth for women’s sports and more.

You can subscribe to this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, and more.

(Photo: Christian Petersen / Getty Images)

ncG1vNJzZmismJqutbTLnquim16YvK57k25qaWtjZnxzfJFsZmltX2aFcK7RoqutppWueqi%2ByKecq2WimsG2vs1mnKyonmK6pr7CrqmyZw%3D%3D