The Woj bomb lives on. Kind of.
Adrian Wojnarowski, ESPN’s longtime NBA insider who chose to hang it up last year to become general manager of the St. Bonaventure men’s basketball program, is making a return to media. However, he won’t be breaking any big NBA transactions. His new show is designed purely to benefit his basketball program’s NIL fund.
According to a report by Andrew Marchand in The Athletic, Wojnarowski is launching a new show called The Program with Woj, which is set to air on YouTube in weekly installments. The former ESPN star will interview “big-name team builders using his vast contacts from his decades in sports media and first year in the front office,” Marchand reports.
“I’m learning a lot in this GM role at St. Bonaventure and want to explore my new world with a lot of the innovative team-building minds in sports,” Wojnarowski told The Athletic. “My financial motivation with The Program is simply to raise revenue to be distributed directly back to our players on campus.”
The show already has a title sponsor from the company Novig.
Last year, Wojnarowski sent shockwaves through the sports media world when he abruptly decided to retire from his role as preeminent NBA newsbreaker to return to his alma mater and become a GM. In doing so, Woj left a reported $20 million on the table at ESPN.
Ever since, Adrian Wojnarowski has been active in trying to secure as much NIL for his Bonnies program as possible. He struck an NIL deal with WWE and even auctioned off his old iPhones and press credentials to raise money for the program. His new show might be a touch more sustainable than those ventures, especially if he’s leveraging his deep basketball connections to secure A-list guests.
A release date for the new series is not yet known.
About Drew Lerner
Drew Lerner is a staff writer for Awful Announcing and an aspiring cable subscriber. He previously covered sports media for Sports Media Watch. Future beat writer for the Oasis reunion tour.