Four Years After Rachel Nichols ESPN Drama, Maria Taylor Still Thinks She's The Victim

Four years later, Maria Taylor is apparently still convinced that she is the victim of her breakup with ESPN.

In an interview with Carmelo Anthony last week, Taylor said she "cried every day" while covering the 2021 Olympics in Tokyo for NBC, having just left ESPN.

"There was a healing process that you have to go through after something like that. To me, that was traumatic," Taylor said.

She added that someone at her former employer told her she would "never be seen on TV again" if she left ESPN.

Hmm.

Who exactly at ESPN told Taylor she would never be seen again? Unfortunately, Anthony never asked her that question in a follow-up. OutKick sent Taylor a text message on Monday for clarification. She did not respond by the time of publication. We will update this story if she does.

That said, we are skeptical.

ESPN's ‘Crappy Longtime Record on Diversity’

Let's recap the saga that led to her exit. It was arguably the most toxic in the history of sports media — which is saying something, given Keith Olbermann’s many, many exits.

In 2019, Rachel Nichols' contract with ESPN stated that she would be the next host of the NBA Finals after Michelle Beadle's departure. However, in 2020, it was Maria Taylor who anchored the Finals desk for ESPN’s ABC coverage from the "Bubble" in Orlando.

While in Orlando, Nichols was secretly recorded during a personal phone call with Adam Mendelsohn, the longtime advisor to LeBron James. Nichols explained to Mendelsohn that ESPN removed her from the Finals in favor of Taylor for "diversity" reasons.

"I wish Maria Taylor all the success in the world — she covers football, she covers basketball," Nichols said in July 2020 via the New York Times, which obtained the audio clip. "If you need to give her more things to do because you are feeling pressure about your crappy longtime record on diversity — which, by the way, I know personally from the female side of it — like, go for it. Just find it somewhere else. You are not going to find it from me or taking my thing away."

However, this phone call was not published until July 2021, nearly a year after it was recorded. The publication coincided with the time Taylor’s negotiations with ESPN had turned contentious.

Money, Leverage and 'Stephen A. Smith' Numbers

More background: The New York Post reported five days before the Times' article that Taylor turned down a $5 million-a-year offer from ESPN — a $4 million-a-year raise — and demanded "Stephen A. Smith money," which was around $8 million annually at the time. The Post added that both NBC and Amazon had interest in Taylor and that she could possibly sign with both networks.

Following the leak, ESPN removed Nichols from the sidelines for the NBA Finals and eventually dismissed her that summer. To recap, ESPN signed Nichols to host the Finals, took it away from her because she is white, and then fired her for noticing it.

Meanwhile, Taylor hosted the Finals for a second straight season and then left for NBC to host its coverage of the NFL and Olympics. As she told Carmelo Anthony, she was hosting — and "crying" at — the Olympics in Tokyo just days after she left ESPN.

Since 2021, Taylor has added NBA hosting duties to her role with NBC. Nichols has yet to sign a full-time deal with a network. And yet, Nichols is the one still apologizing, and Taylor is the one playing victim.

It’s all such a lie.

Maria Taylor left ESPN for NBC, where she covered the NFL and the Olympic Games in Paris. (Photo by Richard Bord/Getty Images for NBC Universal)

Who Really Got a Raw Deal?

Nichols might be a California liberal who embraced the Marxist political organization and fundraising campaign called Black Lives Matter. But she has also covered the NBA for three decades and is among the most respected reporters in the league. She earned a spot on the Finals. The fact that the NBA added two broadcast partners this year and neither hired Nichols is insulting to her résumé.

Meanwhile, Taylor had never covered the NBA before ESPN gave her the Finals. She had never covered the NFL before NBC gave her Sunday Night Football.

But we are supposed to sit and nod along when a bunch of spoiled brats like Jemele Hill and Mina Kimes tell us that white privilege is real in sports media and that DEI is a good thing?

And for those who don’t think this story remains significant, just understand these dynamics could cost you your job as well. Maybe they already have.

Victimhood Pays Well

The fact that, four years later, the narrative remains that Taylor — not Nichols — is the victim underscores that we remain a society afraid to have an honest conversation about race.

As much as Maria Taylor wants you to believe she is a victim, she is the furthest thing from one. She is, by definition, the privileged one.

She was then and is now the host of NBC’s NFL, NBA, and Olympics coverage, while simultaneously detailing to podcasters her "traumatic" experience for which her greed is entirely responsible.

Finally, as we await a response from Taylor about who at ESPN told her she "would never be seen on TV again," you likely noticed something contradictory during the recap of her negotiations. It was reported early in the process that both NBC and Amazon had interest in her.  No one in the industry to whom we spoke disputed that Taylor had other offers and was a talented host.

The dispute was whether she was worth $8 million a year as a studio host when other top ESPN talents were asked to take pay cuts due to COVID.

Notice Taylor left out that detail in her recap.