Chiney Ogwumike gets honest about ESPN's women's hoops coverage

The recent surge in women’s basketball popularity has highlighted a missed opportunity for greater media coverage in past years. At the same time, it begs the question of whether the national media this year —2024— has done a good job of covering the sport as a whole.

A guest on the Awful Announcing podcast, Chiney Ogwumike , weighed in on the question but wanted to give a twofold answer to host Brandon Contes. As an ESPN NBA and women’s basketball analyst herself, Ogwumike wanted to grade it in two ways — ESPN and the overall national media landscape.

“I think, ESPN, I’m really grateful for Dave Roberts, Jimmy Pitaro, and Burke (Magnus) — those are like the big three there (at ESPN),” she told Contes. “They understood, particularly Dave when he took over a lot of basketball responsibilities, that there was a great opportunity with these rising stars. This was years ago. So, then we started investing in a WNBA Countdown, which, imagine if we tried to establish a show this year to meet it; like, I don’t know if we’d be ready.

“But we had been building towards having not only the actual show infrastructure but also building a roster of talent and diversifying that roster of talent to meet the moment for years, so we’d have the chemistry to be able to tell the story in an authentic way that people cared about, especially this year. ESPN, obviously, as a basketball player, I would’ve always have loved them to invest, I guess you can say, with resources, shows, talent, programming in my sport. But fortunately, their investment came in a really meaningful way. At least from my experience, with boots on the ground five years ago, especially under Dave Roberts, that it shifted the paradigm so that when these moments happened, we were able to problem solve, put people in places that they could shine, and also capture the moment in a way that captivated the world.

“I’m really proud of that. I am also really proud that we’re gonna continue to push forward in this. I believe in that mission. I believe in Jimmy and even Bob Iger, who is someone that has been super invested in the direction of women’s sports, brought us big three to upfront this year — myself, Andraya (Carter) and Elle (Duncan). Like, there’s an alignment in supporting where this is going, and I’m grateful that there was a foundation that was invested years ago to be able to meet the moment…”

Ogwumike said she’s proud of ESPN’s foothold but admitted that the network —including her— still has work to do.

“Now, the national media landscape, I do think there’s a big learning curve,” Ogwumike says. “I’m really grateful for a lot of the conversation, and at times — I’m not gonna lie — the way the conversation was going to start this WNBA season after the incidents happening, I was really concerned about it affecting the product. But now, looking back, in a weird way it kind of helped. These women are household names. These women are living up to every moment that they’re put in… These women deliver.

“I was concerned about the conversation derailing the momentum, but it only lit a fire and made them bigger stars. It allowed people to be educated as to who the stars —(cough, cough) Arike Ogunbowale— of the now are. They’ve educated themselves to these storylines. I think we’re in a really good place, but I’d prefer not to have to go on national television and speak the truth alongside my sisters Monica (McNutt) and Andraya and Co.

“But if that is a necessity to continue to educate people as to what this league, as to what women’s basketball has always been, give our legends our flowers for building the foundation, the runway… It has been a huge educational experience for, I think, the mainstream media for how to show up for women’s sports in a way that is respectful because some people have not been respectful. But how to continue to tell the stories in a way that’s not just serving omne, but servicing all.”

The Chiney Ogwumike episode of the AA podcast will be released on Friday, August 2. Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , and wherever you get your podcasts. For more content, subscribe to AA’s YouTube page.

The post Chiney Ogwumike: ESPN’s investment in women’s basketball helped prepare network for breakout season appeared first on Awful Announcing .