With 2024 coming to a close, we’re handing out some hardware to recognize the best and most notable in sports media over the past year.

Sports Media Story of the Year: The NBA Leaves TNT, Puts Future of Inside the NBA In Jeopardy

Nobody should be surprised anymore when a sport ditches cable for streaming. Streaming isn’t the future. Streaming is the now. Still, when news broke that the NBA would end its relationship with what is now known as Warner Brothers Discovery (WBD), and partner up with Amazon and NBC/Peacock for its new broadcast deal beginning with the 2025–26 season, it was still a shock. WBD, formerly known as Turner Sports, has been airing NBA games since 1984.

There were a lot of layers to the NBA breaking up with WBD. CEO Davis Zaslav had said his company did not need the NBA, so Adam Silver decided to say checkmate. There was haggling over contract language, lawsuits and uncertainty for a little while.

But the biggest offshoot of TNT being out of the NBA business wasn’t the fact that TNT would no longer air games. It was that the iconic Inside the NBA would come to an end. Or so we thought.

There was months of speculation about what would happen to Ernie Johnson, Kenny Smith, Charles Barkley and Shaquille O’Neal. Johnson had said he would not leave WBD. Barkley announced that he would talk to other networks about leaving WBD, then announced he was retiring, then announced he was staying at WBD.

Then another bombshell in this saga was dropped when it was announced that Inside the NBA would continue on with the same cast and crew, but would air on ESPN thanks to a licensing deal with WBD. And this created another round of drama. Shaq doesn’t have a contract past June 2025. Barkley recently said he still plans on talking to Amazon and NBC. ESPN has said it will continue with its current NBA studio show on nights when it doesn’t have Inside the NBA (which is only expected to air on Saturdays or Sundays during the regular season next year).

The saga of the NBA/TNT/Inside the NBA had all the trademarks of a vintage soap opera story line with constant twists, turns and cliffhangers.

Sports Media Personality of the Year: Pat McAfee

Pat McAfee gives ESPN a lot of things with his daily talk show. He gives the network tonnage, thanks to The Pat McAfee Show airing five days a week for two hours a day. He gives them an enormous social presence, which includes 3.2 million followers on Twitter, 2.4 million followers on Instagram, 1.9 million viewers on TikTok and 2.7 million subscribers on YouTube. He also gives ESPN major cachet thanks to having the best guests of any sports show in existence.

McAfee also won his battle with ESPN executive editor and head of event and studio production Norby Williamson. McAfee called Williamson “a rat” and accused the exec of trying to sabotoge his show during an early January episode. Four months later, Williamson was gone from ESPN.

But the daily show is only part of the McAfee story. What put him over the top for getting the nod here is what he did for College GameDay this season. McAfee’s energy and personality are perfect for that show. McAfee already had a good thing going with Kirk Herbstreit (who absolutely loves McAfee and cited McAfee’s presence on GameDay as a reason for him remaining with the show), but he also instantly had chemistry with new hire Nick Saban, making for an entertaining Odd Couple partnership.

In addition, McAfee made his weekly field goal contest on GameDay an event. Each week, momentum built and the field-goal challenge became bigger and bigger on social media. It used to be that the must-see event on a Saturday morning was Lee Corso putting on a mascot head. Now there are two must-see events on a Saturday morning: Corso putting on a mascot head and McAfee trying to give away six figures to a college kid attempting a field goal.

It also needs to be mentioned here that McAfee’s 2024 work included color commentary on WWE’s flagship show, Monday Night Raw. (He also was a participant in the Royal Rumble.)

You can’t have a much better year than that.

Most Shocking Sports Media Moment + Biggest Sports Media Retirement of the Year: Adrian Wojnarowski Leaves Sports Media

It was the Woj Bomb of all Woj Bombs. On Wednesday, Sept. 18, at 10:40 a.m., ESPN NBA insider Adrian Wojnarowski stunned the entire sports world when he announced he was retiring from sports media and would become the general manager for the St. Bonaventure men’s basketball team.

At the time, the 55-year-old Woj cited a desire for more time, wanting to move on to his “dream job,” and no longer having the drive to be on call 24/7 to break stories. Later, in a feature story by my colleague, Chris Mannix, we found out there was a little more behind Woj’s retirement from sports media. There was a health scare, a chilling story about attending Chris Mortensen’s funeral and the realization that breaking transactions wasn’t going to lead to the legacy Woj wanted.

Woj’s disappearance from the breaking news game is a big loss for NBA fans because Wojnarowski takes the Woj Bomb with him. The fact that “Woj Bomb” even became a thing tells you what Woj’s impact was on the NBA world.

Biggest Needle Mover: Caitlin Clark

When it comes to Caitlin Clark, it’s all about numbers. Mainly, record-breaking numbers when it comes to TV ratings and attendance.

This past season, 23 WNBA games drew more than a million viewers. Clark’s Indiana Fever played in 20 of those games. Before this season, the last time a WNBA game drew a million viewers was in 2008.

These were the top 10 most-watched games of the 2024 WNBA season:

Sept. 25: Fever at Sun: 2.54 million
June 23: Fever at Sky: 2.30 million
June 16: Sky at Fever: 2.25 million
Aug. 18: Storm at Fever: 2.32 million
May 14: Fever at Sun: 2.12 million
June 30: Fever at Mercry: 1.93 million
July 6: Liberty at Fever: 1.87 million
Sept. 22: Fever at Sun: 1.8 million
May 18: Fever at Liberty: 1.71 million
July 17: Fever at Wings: 1.70 million

In fact, Clark played in the 16 most-watched games of the season.

Before Clark dominated the WNBA from a ratings perspective, she left her mark on the college game. The women’s NCAA title game between the South Carolina Gamecocks and Clark’s Iowa Hawkeyes drew a whopping 18.7 million viewers. By contrast, the men’s final this year drew 14.8 million viewers.

Earlier in the tournament, Iowa’s Elite Eight game against LSU drew 12.3 million viewers, making it the most-watched game in women’s college basketball history. That record was then shattered a few days later when Clark and Iowa drew 14.2 million viewers for their Final Four game against UConn.

No athlete has moved the ratings needle like Clark since Tiger Woods.

Comeback Story of the Year: Tony Romo

CBS’s lead NFL analyst became a social media punching bag over the past couple of years. NFL fans picked apart every aspect of Romo’s performance to the point where it became sport. Romo wasn’t nearly as bad as fans made it seem, but he did regress as an analyst. Oddly, the issue wasn’t Romo’s X’s and O’s. It was more about Romo relying on hyperbole, getting overly excited at times and not finishing his thoughts or speaking clearly enough.

In 2024, Romo cleaned all that up and now the Romo-bashing is minimal. Part of the reason is that many NFL fans have made Tom Brady their top target this year, so maybe that took some heat off of Romo; but after the Romo backlash reached a fever pitch the past two seasons, Romo backlash barely exists now.

Romo obviously deserves credit for this, because he has toned things down and the result is a much cleaner, calmer broadcast with partner Jim Nantz. The highlight for this booth came during the Commanders’ Hail Mary win against the Bears in Week 8. Nantz set up Washington’s final drive to perfection and then Nantz had the memorable call on the final play while Romo stayed quiet.

Biggest Rising Star: J.J. Watt

The No. 1 trait sports fans want from an analyst is to be opinionated. We don’t mean throw out hot takes that you don’t believe just to get attention and engagement. We mean let it fly when it comes to sharing an opinion even if it may ruffle some feathers.

Whether it’s during his weekly spot with McAfee or on social media, Watt doesn’t hold back. He holds back a little bit on CBS because CBS doesn’t want to upset King Roger or the NFL, plus time is limited on those pregame shows and those pregame shows aren’t looking to ruffle anyone’s feathers.

But Watt goes after refs and the league like few others in sports media. He calls out suspensions, ridiculous unnecessary roughness penalties, questions how the league thinks refs could accurately assess a hip tackle and he had a lot to say about Tua Tagovaiola’s concussions.

He’s also called out Aaron Rodgers, Pro Football Focus and Austin Rivers among others.

Watt is in “no f---- to give” territory. He has more money than he’ll ever spend, he owns a soccer team, he’s going to the Hall of Fame. He doesn’t have to worry bout getting on the league’s bad side. That makes him a wild card. And that’s a good thing.

Sports Show of the Year: Hard Knocks

It had been forever since Hard Knocks was a must-watch, but two new versions of the show changed that in 2024 and gave the tired franchise much-needed relevancy.

For the first time ever, Hard Knocks gave us an offseason edition featuring the New York Giants. The inside look at the team negotiating with running back Saquon Barkley and trying to figure out its quarterback situation was unprecedented. And then the show became even more impactful and newsworthy as the season went on and Barkley dominated in Philly, Jones got cut by the Giants and New York put forth one of the most embarrassing seasons in franchise history.

Then came the in-season edition featuring the AFC North teams. Following four teams at once, four teams competing against one another no less, injected great life into the Hard Knocks and gave us a more intriguing and compelling show than the one that just follows one team during training camp when not much is going on compared to during the season.

Biggest Sports Media Event of the Year: The Roast of Tom Brady

Nobody knew what to expect from Netflix’s Tom Brady roast. Nobody knew why Brady would agree to do it, especially since he was just coming off complete upheaval of his personal life. And most people still can’t believe what they saw on the night of May 5.

Brady’s divorce was mocked. His role as a father was lambasted. Gronk was destroyed for being less than intelligent. Politically incorrect jokes flew at a rapid rate. Ben Affleck embarrassed himself. Comedians raised their profile. And still, as the calendar turns from 2024 to 2025, we still have no idea why Brady agreed to be roasted.

Most Electrifying Calls of the Year: MLB’s Postseason

Major League Baseball had a thrilling postseason that was filled with drama on a daily basis throughout October. Local play-by-play callers shone in capturing the excitement of the games and the passion of the fan base they represented. Whether it was Howie Rose in New York calling Mets, the legendary Bob Uecker doing his thing in Milwaukee or Tom Hamilton using his tremendous pipes in Cleveland, the importance of local announcers was never more evident.


This article was originally published on www.si.com as The Sports Illustrated 2024 Sports Media Awards.

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