ESPN surrenders to Woj in tipping NBA Draft picks war

For the NBA Draft, ESPN insider Adrian Wojnarowski will be “lasered” in on tipping the draft choices on Twitter before they are on TV.

In other words, Wojnarowski, with a wink, will attempt to put out the picks before NBA commissioner Adam Silver announces them. This plan is a change from what ESPN and NBA executives agreed to for last year’s draft.

Prior to the 2018 selection show, the NBA and its league partners, including ESPN, said publicly that its reporters would not foretell the choices before they were on TV.

While Wojnarowski and fellow insider Shams Charania, then of NBA partner Yahoo, sat out to start the draft, Marc Stein, formerly of ESPN and now of the New York Times, swooped in and forecasted the first three picks while also breaking the Luka Doncic deal.

Though it was unclear if this was his plan all along, Wojnarwoski jumped in with both feet. His creative choice of words — Boston is “tantalized” by Robert Williams at No. 27 — to indicate the picks became a social media sensation.

In reality, tweeting picks minutes or seconds before they are announced doesn’t really add that much. The information will be out shortly, but it has become the game within the game.

It really is a part of a larger question if reporters should be giving out their information to Twitter (a free service as opposed to their employer.) But, these days, sports news insiders make their names by being first on the platform.

For his part, Wojnarowski declined to comment on his Twitter philosophy. Stein said he focuses more on uncovering trades while explaining why he tweets the choices before Silver announces them.

“I see the tweets that come from viewers who believe that the tipping of picks ruins the broadcast for them and I am sympathetic to it,” said Stein, who has 1.3 million Twitter followers. “But there are also folks in the audience who don’t want to wait. The obligation here is to the reader/viewer/listener/etc. If there is a segment of the audience that wants this information as fast as we can get it to them, we should try to provide it.”

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Charania, who now works for Stadium and The Athletic, will be tweeting picks while on Stadium’s video service show during the draft.

“To me, it is just another reporting element,” Charania said. “On draft night, you are reporting about trades, undrafted free agents signings. For me, it is just another reporting topic.”

Twitter and the NBA fans will be “enamored” with each prediction. It has become a big topic, but, for fans who don’t want them they could simply not look at Twitter or mute the insiders.

Clicker consulting: Wojnarowski is the top scoopmaster in the game. His best attribute is when he drops his famous “Woj Bombs,” but ESPN uses him a lot on TV so, as always, Clicker Consulter has some free advice that we are sure will be appreciated.

Wojnarowski needs to start looking at the camera when he is in a two-person shot.

Though his content is always informative — in two-person shots — it is distracting to viewers that he talks just to the anchor.

For people on air, the camera is a third person (you are looking at the viewer), so it feels as if Wojnarowski is ignoring the audience. It is odd that ESPN doesn’t have Wojnarowski switch to a one-shot, looking straight into the camera and at the viewer when he delivers his information.

Wojnarowski is on air for his reporting, but TV is a visual medium. Even for scoopmasters.

Olsen could broadcast this season: Panthers tight end Greg Olsen is returning to play, but he still could end up in the broadcast booth this season, according to sources. It is just for one game.

Fox is figuring out if Olsen can work a game on Oct. 20, the Panthers’ bye week. Olsen would likely be in a two-man booth. Olsen has spoken with networks the last two offseasons and, if this is his final season playing, he could be in a booth full-time next year.

Women’s World Cup: While Fox is usually good at making events feel bigger, the Women’s World Cup, so far, has not had that feeling. Part of it may not be Fox’s fault as it doesn’t get to handle the game production.

Fox can control how many game broadcast teams it has in France. Right now, it has two of its six teams there. It costs more than six figures, according to a source with knowledge, to have a broadcast crew in Paris for the event.

Meanwhile, Fox’s top play-by-player, JP Dellacamera, needs to rise to the level of what fans are accustomed to from ESPN’s Ian Darke and NBC’s Arlo White.

Finally, the Fox Sports app needs to be more reliable. Personally, it has not worked seamless enough, but we asked our followers on Twitter, too. Out of 812 votes, more than 50% had issues with the app.

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