The NBA All-Star Game has always been a major event for Inside the NBA, and this year’s edition in the Bay Area will mark 40 years of TNT’s live All-Star Weekend coverage.
Since 2003, the network has also broadcast the All-Star Game itself, making it a centerpiece of its programming. Over the years, the event has produced some of Inside’s most memorable moments and played a key role in the show’s evolution.
TNT Sports vice president and coordinating director Steve Fiorello, who has directed Inside the NBA since 2000, spoke to Awful Announcing about the show’s connection with fans and how All-Star Weekend remains a prime opportunity for creativity.
“It’s always an opportunity for us to be creative and have some fun and try and create moments,” he said. “That’s ultimately what we try to do, just engage with the guys and create moments. All-Star’s always been that since I’ve been doing it, whether it’s when we were in Las Vegas, and we built a studio set on top of the Caesar’s Palace fountains right out in front of the building, and EJ came in on a chariot with Roman gladiators surrounding him and Magic Johnson came in.”
Each All-Star Weekend brings its logistical challenges, but Fiorello said the effort to overcome them is always worthwhile.
“To me, it’s always challenging because every location is different, and we’re always trying to create moments,” he said. “But we look forward to that because it takes the guys out of the studio, it brings them closer to the fan base.”
Fan interaction will once again be a major focus this weekend. TNT’s coverage begins with the Rising Stars event on Friday, continues with All-Star Saturday Night, and leads into Sunday’s game.
Fiorello is also excited about this year’s format change, which features the Inside the NBA analysts serving as general managers. NBA on TNT Tuesday analyst Candace Parker will GM the team that wins the Rising Stars game.
“In the game itself, I’m really excited about the format and the NBA’s approach in trying to make this an entertainment-type event,” Fiorello said. “I’m really excited about how they’re integrating all of it collectively with our guys being the general managers as well as Candace.”
Inside the NBA’s evolution
Fiorello joined Inside in 2000 after working at ESPN. The same year, Charles Barkley became a full-time analyst alongside Kenny Smith and Ernie Johnson.
Adjusting to the show’s unscripted format took time.
“The formula back then when I was directing there was very scripted, whereas this show wasn’t,” Fiorello said. “So the first year was a little bit of a transition for me, just understanding the free-flowing range that we were trying to create with Charles and with Kenny and EJ. So there was a little learning curve there.”
Another major shift came ahead of the 2011-12 season when Shaquille O’Neal joined the team.
“I think the next evolution of the show was when Shaq came on,” he said. “As you can imagine, that was a whole other kind of layer added to the success that we had already been having. And I remember that being a little bit of a transition as well, getting to kind of lean into Shaq’s sensibilities and things that he gravitated towards.”
One standout moment came early in Shaq’s tenure when Fiorello brought in a Walking Dead makeup artist to prank Barkley.
“I remember one of the first things I did with Shaq was when Chuck was losing all this weight, and so they wanted to take their shirts off. So I said, ‘Shaq, hey, what we’re going to do is we’ll take your shirt off.’ And I brought in a makeup artist from The Walking Dead…I had the makeup artist paint abs and just highlight and accentuate Shaq’s body. So when he took his shirt off on camera, he’s a threat.”
“It was great, he loved it, the video is tremendous. And you can see Kenny in the video; he kind of picks up the fact that Shaq’s got abs painted on. That was one of the moments that changed in terms of really understanding where Shaq is at his best.”
Seven years ago, Inside took another leap by integrating real-time social media interactions into the show.
“We started integrating this new product, which we call Spreadfast today, where we can query a bunch of social media to find posts that are specific to our show and start displaying these social threads and comments on the air live in real-time,” he said. “No one was really doing that at the time. …But what really, I think, elevated it was the fact that our guys, Chuck, Shaq, Kenny, and EJ, they’re so smart, and they’re so in tune with our fan base, they started calling out the people that were posting stuff. And that became a thing.”
Fiorello believes this unique engagement has only strengthened Inside‘s connection with its audience.
“The fan base knows if they’re watching the show and they want to post something socially, whether on X or TikTok or whatever, they know there’s a chance in real-time that they could see their name on there and get yelled at by Chuck, Shaq, and the guys,” he said. “I think that’s one of the really cool components of that, that there’s a genuine link to our fan base live and in real-time.”
A Show Bigger than the Game
One of the most remarkable aspects of Inside is how that studio show often draws more attention than the particular game broadcast it’s tied to. That represents a larger microscope than most studio shows receive, but Fiorello said he thinks the attention paid to it is positive.
“I think that’s a blessing for sure. And that’s a huge compliment because it’s not always like that, and I’ve been on plenty of shows and worked on plenty of shows where it’s not. I think it’s a testament to everybody that works on the show and how the ideas come from anybody and anywhere.”
Fiorello also notes that Inside is one of the few shows where social media rarely highlights criticism.
“I’ve been in this business for about 30 years, and social media has really ramped up over the past 15 years or so,” he said. “This is the only show that I’ve been a part of that, I wouldn’t say never, but very, very rarely do I ever see anything negative about the show.
“And it’s unique in this. Because I think social media, in general, has a tendency to point out all the negatives of what’s going on. But this doesn’t seem to really get a lot of negative stuff. Except when Shaq’s yelling my name out for technical problems, and then social media starts popping up my name and saying I should be fired. But it’s all good; it’s all fun.”
