CNBC Sport: Shams Charania on joining ESPN and life after Woj

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The man of the week is Shams Charania. Just weeks after ESPN basketball reporter Adrian Wojnarowski shocked the sports world by announcing his retirement from journalism, ESPN scooped up Woj’s main rival and one-time protege, Charania. 

The timing is fortuitous. As it happened, Charania’s contracts with his previous employers FanDuel TV and The Athletic expired at the end of September. His deal with digital sports media outlet Stadium ended in August.

Now he’s all ESPN’s, and you can plan to see him on your TV screens quite often. Charania begins his ESPN TV work today. He was kind enough to give me his first exclusive interview since joining the Worldwide Leader in Sports (Don’t tell ESPN President Jimmy Pitaro I called it that!).

“It’s definitely going to be a lot of TV,” Charania said. “All the shows you think about: ‘NBA Today,’ ‘NBA Countdown,’ ‘Get Up,’ ‘Sportscenter,’ ‘The Pat McAfee Show.’ I feel like the last six years have really helped prepare me for this moment, and I’m excited to continue to use and share in this platform and the behemoth that is ESPN.”

The Shams vs. Woj rivalry has come to define NBA reporting and was a major piece of the league’s fan culture. I wrote about the phenomenon in early 2022. Two men, battling for scoops, with the Twitter universe rooting them on or dunking on the reporter that failed to be first. They worked together at Yahoo Sports before becoming rivals, only for Charania to eventually take over for Wojnarowski at ESPN. A Shakespearean plot! 

Plus, the state of their relationship has been … nebulous, at best. I asked Charania to describe his relationship with Wojnarowski in recent years.

“Do I have to answer that?” Charania joked in reference to the water-cooler topic, before settling on an answer.

“We worked together for two years. I’m forever honored and cherished to have been a part of that Vertical staff [at Yahoo Sports],” Charania said. “It’s a very competitive business. It’s a very, very competitive space. Over the last several years, I have just tried to just hone in on what aspects I can control on a daily basis, and that’s how I treat people and my work ethic.” 

Wojnarowski appeared on “The Jim Rome Show” to praise Charania earlier this week.

“Shams texted me after I announced my retirement, and what I told him is what I would say today,” Wojnarowski said on Monday. “I hope he has as fulfilling and as rewarding of a career as I’ve had. And I certainly wish that for him.”

I asked Charania what he texted.

“It was a congratulatory message on just the appreciation that I have and his amazing career,” Charania said. “We spent two years together at Yahoo, and I was brought on to The Vertical, and the help that I had early on in my career as a younger reporter, that will never be lost on me. Just wishing him the best in his retirement and his next chapter. I’m forever indebted, and I think everyone in the industry should be as well.”

Charania’s reporting style — which involves a torrent of texts and calls to NBA power players throughout the day — can sometimes irritate readers and even his sources. He’s relentless in his pursuit of scoops, and that can lead people to believe he’s simply a mouthpiece for agents and general managers. 

Charania says that’s a total misunderstanding of his job as a reporter.

“I’m here to dig information up,” he said. “Over the course of my career, I’ve tried not to be that annoying, but you understand it. You know when you feel like you have news or you’re digging on news, you’re digging on a tip. There’s a level of relentlessness to it. And I definitely think there have been times where people might feel like I am maybe overwhelming when I’m reaching out to dig up a trade, or dig up a signing, or dig up a major piece of news. But I’d rather be characterized that way than not being aggressive and trying to hunt and do my job.”

Charania, 30, is ESPN’s youngest-ever lead insider for any sport. His main job won’t change at ESPN, he told me. He’ll still try his best to be a scoop machine, even if he doesn’t have his challenger-in-crime breathing down his neck anymore. 

“This is a new chapter for me,” Charania said. “The expectations are still to break news, writing, working with the staff, and make everyone better. New challenges, new team, new everything. I can’t wait for it. I’m going to be doing way more TV than I’ve ever done, even though I feel like I was already doing a lot of TV. I think it’s going to be a start of a great new era for me at ESPN.”

A couple of news & notes:

• I’m told there are at least four active discussions between NFL teams and private equity firms. Last month, I’d reported the Miami Dolphins, the Buffalo Bills and the Los Angeles Chargers are among the teams that will likely explore selling minority stakes to private equity, according to people familiar with the matter. The Dolphins are already close, CNBC reported last week.

• On CNBC’s “Squawk Box” this morning, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, New England Patriots owner Bob Kraft and National Women’s Soccer League Commissioner Jessica Berman made a joint announcement. CNBC’s Jessica Golden has the details here.