On Wednesday, ESPN’s NBA reporter Adrian Wojnarowski announced that he’s retiring from his role as a newsbreaker. Wojnarowski had a legendary career, and his “Woj Bombs” on social media changed sports media.
Shortly after Wojnarowski’s announcement, his close friend and ESPN colleague Adam Schefter reported that Wojnarowski has accepted a job as the general manager of St. Bonaventure’s men’s basketball program.
During an appearance on ESPN’s “NBA Today” this afternoon, Schefter gave a behind-the-scenes look at the chaotic life of a newsbreaker, and explained why Wojnarowski was ready to move on.
Adam Schefter Peels Back the Curtain on Life As an Insider
Not many people know what goes into the role of NFL or NBA insider. You’re working 24/7, always on call in case news breaks. You have to maintain relationships with everyone. It’s incredibly competitive, as the job is to tweet out news seconds before your competition. Even if you get a big scoop, the focus shifts to the next one.
“There are only a handful of people that could understand what you do for a living and what it takes and what goes into it. Woj was one of those,” Schefter said. “I would say that he understands what we do, what I do, better than my wife understands it.”
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Schefter has talked with Wojnarowski about why he’s stepping away, and he provided a detailed explanation.
“We talked about this, and basically he wanted his life back,” Schefter said. “He didn’t want to have to work on holidays. He didn’t want to be away from more family gatherings. He didn’t want to, as we had to do in the past, take a shower with your phone up against the shower door so you could see a text was coming in, or take your phone with you to the urinal and hold it in one hand while you tried to take care of your business in the other.
“That’s the life that we live. That was the life that he chose not to do any longer. It takes over your life. You can’t kinda do the job; you have to live the job, and he was done living the job. He wants to go live his life and work for his school and give back to younger athletes and help people beyond what he’s done at the highest of high levels for however long he’s done it.
“It’s enough. He’s had enough, and he gets to go out on his terms after he crushed it in free agency, after he crushed in his career. And now he gets to do what he wants, which is exactly how it should be.”
.@AdamSchefter on Adrian Wojnarowski's retirement:
"It takes over your life. You can't kind of do the job, you have to live the job, and he was done living the job. … Now he gets to do what he wants, which is exactly how it should be." pic.twitter.com/INlIrXLJvr
— NBA on ESPN (@ESPNNBA) September 18, 2024
Bleacher Report’s NFL insider Jordan Schultz echoed Schefter’s sentiment when I spoke with him earlier this year.
“I’ll tell you: it is very difficult day in and day out to do the insider gig. It’s relentless. My nature is I’m relentless in terms of chasing information, but it gets hard, and it’s lonely sometimes,” Schultz said. ” … It’s conniving, it’s tough, and you feel like you’re on an island a lot. … It’s hard to explain unless you’ve experienced it — having your phone on at night, having your phone always by you.
“It’s difficult. We have two young kids, and the phone is a constant issue because I want to be present for them and be Daddy and a husband first, but the NFL game is really, I would say — with respect to the NBA — truly the only 365 sport. Just the way the league is marketed, from the NFL Draft to free agency to the Combine to the Senior Bowl, it just never ends.
“It’s difficult, but it’s very rewarding when you break news and get to go on networks — that’s obviously the payoff. I want to do it through the lens of the players and empower the players and not just break the news. I want to give more context, but even that’s difficult sometimes because the cycle is so fast.”
A few years ago, I spoke to Wojnarowski about his relationship with Schefter and other newsbreakers.
“I’ve learned a lot from watching Adam Schefter and how he handles news on ‘NFL Countdown’ and ‘Monday Night Countdown,’” Wojnarowski told me in April 2021. “It helped to watch Adam, and we bounce things off each other all the time. We were just doing it the other day.
“He had a slew of breaking NFL stories recently, and I called him about one particular story and said, ‘Tell me the backstory. Here’s my guess of how this came together; am I right?’ We talk all the time. At least a couple times a week, we’ll have a lengthy conversation about this stuff. I’m always learning stuff from him. Adam has been an incredible resource for me, and we consider each other close friends.
“[MLB reporter] Jeff Passan, who I worked with at Yahoo, is another person. Emily Kaplan on the NHL [beat] at our place is in that realm now, and she’s going to be great… Chris Mortensen is another person I lean on. I miss being in Bristol with Mort; I love to pick Mort’s brain when we’re together because he’s a forebearer in this business.
“One of the great perks of this job is being surrounded by these people. I’ll talk through different scenarios with them and bounce ideas off of them, and it’s great getting to work with people like that.”
Mortensen sadly passed away earlier this year, but he and Wojnarowski were very close.
Woj also explained to me that a big part of being an insider is weighing when to release certain pieces of news. Not every nugget gets tweeted out immediately, as he had saved certain reports for his appearances on “NBA Countdown.”
“My prep starts by looking at the schedule and seeing who’s playing in the Friday night games. Then, all week, I’m talking to teams and people around the league to see where there’s a chance to break some news. [I’m looking for] something that I could hold. There’s certain things that I can hold onto and I know that they aren’t going to get out anywhere else. That’s something that Adam Schefter and I talk about a lot.
“You generally have a sense of what you can and can’t hold onto; there are certain stories where you know that it’s walled off a bit, whereas other stories are more easily accessible to others, so you just have to measure that.
“You always want to stay nimble and know that something might change right up to the show, but there are those times when you can prepare over a period of time and save it to break on the show. Over the course of the week, I’m talking with the producers about what I might have and what I’m working on and what could change. You always want to have a few options.”
But there’s no worse feeling than holding onto information, but then the news gets reported elsewhere.
“The hardest thing for me — the hardest thing by far — is sitting on information when you know it’s probably going to get out, but you’ve made the commitment to the agent or coach or whoever that you’re going to be fair and you’re not going to report it,” Schultz said. “That’s the hardest thing. I wouldn’t say it happens daily, but it happens weekly. Most of the time when that happens, you end up losing the story, and that’s probably the most frustrating [part]. But I don’t want to burn bridges.
“If you want to know the most basic philosophy, it’s don’t burn bridges. It’s gonna come back to haunt you. … It’s the long game. That’s the best way to put it. And look, I’m not perfect. I’ve made mistakes, not maliciously. But I’m sure I’ll make more mistakes. But the better you are with your relationships, [the more likely] it’ll come back around. I think that’s probably the most significant advice I would give to anybody who’s trying to get into this business.”
The life of a newsbreaker is certainly unique. A feature on The Athletic’s NBA insider Shams Charania revealed that he’s on his phone an average of 18 hours per day.
As Schefter said, it’s the kind of job where you need to be all-in if you want to succeed. For Wojnarowski, he’s been all-in for 37 years, and now he’ll get a chance to turn off his phone.