NBA Finals host Maria Taylor’s ESPN contract ends Tuesday, but the network hasn’t announced whether she will work Game 6 or a potential Game 7 on Thursday.
However, sources claim that ESPN and Taylor have agreed to a mini-extension to allow her to work both games.
ESPN declined comment.
The Post reported earlier this week that NBC has designs on signing Taylor to work this upcoming Olympics, which start airing on the network next Friday. If she does sign with NBC, Taylor would be a fit to potentially cover basketball or volleyball.
ESPN has offered Taylor a contract in the neighborhood of $3 million to stay at the company, while NBC wants her for their sports division with the possibility she could be a future host of Football Night in America when Mike Tirico adds more time as an NFL play-by-player. She currently makes $1 million a year.
Meanwhile, Jay Williams, one of the analysts on the NBA Finals’ pregame show, will not finish the series because he announced he has COVID. Williams, who said he had been fully vaccinated, was quarantined in his Milwaukee hotel room. In a social media post, he said his symptoms were milder than they would’ve been, if not for the shots.
Taylor has been in the news after a New York Times story recently came out that shared a leaked year-old video of co-worker Rachel Nichols’ private conversation in which Nichols alleged that ESPN was going to replace her with Taylor as the host of the Finals because of what she described as “a crappy longtime record on diversity.”
Nichols was subsequently taken off the sideline for the NBA Finals.