Like Jon Snow being resurrected by Game of Thrones' Red Priestess, the basketball gods have decided to give one of the most beloved sports podcasts a second chance.
ESPN's TrueHoop podcasts are back. But there's a catch: the pop-culture-meets-sports-talk series of podcasts have a brand-new name, and a slightly different, but mostly familiar lineup.
The social media-fueled outrage, bewilderment and, yes, outright sadness that rained down upon ESPN via Twitter last week following news of TrueHoop's demise has somehow managed to pierce the cold corporate heart of the Bristol, Connecticut-based sports network. Beginning Friday, according to a source familiar with the network's plans, most of the people behind the popular TrueHoop series of podcasts will return under a new name: The Basketball Analogy.
Produced by Jade Hoye, the man behind TrueHoop's sound and much of its rise to prominence, the new podcasts will return familiar voices to listeners like ESPN NBA experts Amin Elhassan, Tom Haberstroh, Kevin Pelton, Brian Windhorst, Kevin Arnovitz, and Tim MacMahon, as well as show regulars like Big Wos and Zach Harper.
The turnaround comes after a torrent of angst from fans of the podcast, many of whom reached out directly to ESPN via social media last week.
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The podcast's name change comes in part as a result of the departure of Henry Abbott, the founder of the TrueHoop blog. Abbott, who was a victim of the network's recent layoffs, was central to TrueHoop's written component, and while he regularly appeared in TrueHoop audio and video, in recent years, the TrueHoop podcast family of hosts and regular guests had expanded far beyond the founder's direct influence. ESPN still effectively owns the TrueHoop name, but the change allows the network to rebrand the popular series of shows without any direct ties to the brand's founder.
With the arrival of well-known Yahoo basketball columnist Adrian Wojnarowski and his The Vertical site and podcast to ESPN so soon after the layoffs, some have openly wondered if there might be a connection between his arrival and the shift in TrueHoop's status. That remains unclear, but given the competitive nature of the basketball beat at ESPN, the coming months will likely see an aggressive approach to delivering NBA content in a variety of ways.
Under TrueHoop's new The Basketball Analogy name, a rotating cast of basketball insiders, journalists, and occasional celebrities will continue the tradition of TrueHoop's weekly themed podcasts, along with the same music cues, "bossanova as censor beep" breaks, and Hoye's well placed desk bell "ding" audio punctuations.
Unfortunately, one of TrueHoop's fan favorites, former Golden State Warriors beat reporter Ethan Sherwood Strauss, is still effectively out of the official ranks of ESPN's basketball cabal following last week's layoffs. But since the podcast is known for welcoming even competing journalists into its fold as guests, listeners may yet get to hear the comedic rants of his "Radio Ethan" character in the future. Fittingly, Strauss' last story for ESPN, published on Tuesday, tells the story of the top team in the NBA, whose only weakness may be its inability to properly harness the talent within its ranks.
But with ESPN's unusually nimble turnaround regarding the podcast, there may yet be hope that the media giant can get past the negative taint of the recent layoffs, and begin leveraging its more internet savvy in-house talent.
