Former ESPN sports broadcaster Rachel Nichols He said on Showtime all smoke This week’s podcast reports that the leaked audio that led to her exit from the sports network was obtained by someone “spying” on her in her hotel room.
Nichols join Showtime Basketball as sports broadcaster and host, its first gig focused on the NBA since leaving ESPN for NBC Sports.
talk with Matt Barnes And the Stephen Jackson On the last episode of the basketball podcast, Nichols spoke at length about her time at the network and about her unfriendly departure from the network.
“I was told, well, you’re not a member of a team, which any working woman knows is an icon, right?” She said who asked for it step down On hosting the NBA Finals. “Women are supposed to be Kumbaya. And team players. And helpful. Men are aggressive sharks and all that.”
On the topic of Nichols’ audio leak talking about then a colleague Maria TaylorNichols said someone was able to record her because she was unaware of the equipment provided for remote broadcasting during the virus restrictions, which led to a direct “line” from her room,
“I didn’t know that if I left a certain app running in the background, the line from my hotel room overlooking my hotel room to Bristol would still be open,” she said.
Nichols described being in her room all day, doing things like unpacking and making phone calls, without anyone giving an alert.
“Unfortunately, all this time, nobody on ESPN told me there was an open line to my hotel room and anyone looking at the feed could see me,” she said. “No one’s shutting it down, she decided, oh, she obviously didn’t know she was being watched, unpacking or doing all these other things.”
And it wasn’t just about being open, but “at least” there was one person actively watching.
“At least one person decided to sit back and watch and started spying on me like I was their own personal TV show,” she said, including recordings of her phone conversations. “When they heard something they thought it was, you see, they picked up their cell phone and started recording my conversation on their cell phone.”
Nichols went through some of what she said and tried to explain her intention to Barnes and Jackson, who previously defended. She added that the person who recorded it sat on the tape for a year.
“They kept it in their pockets,” she said, so they could use it to “squeeze” their negotiations with the network.
The eight-minute clip was shared in a tweet that went viral on Saturday.
Watch the clips above courtesy of show timeAcross Ballislife on Twitter.
Do you have a tip we should know? [email protected]