Flak at ESPN over taped conversation

Rachel Nichols says she apologized to fellow ESPN reporter Maria Taylor for comments that seemed to suggest she thought Taylor was receiving opportunities because ESPN was attempting to make up for its “crappy longtime record on diversity.”

Nichols, who is white, made the comments in July 2020 during a private phone conversation after she learned ESPN wanted her to serve as a sideline reporter during the NBA Finals. The prestigious role of hosting the network’s Finals coverage went to Taylor, who is Black. The call was recorded without Nichols’ knowledge, then distributed to other employees.

The recording has been the subject of conflict within ESPN during the past year, according to the New York Times, which reported on the situation Sunday.

Nichols told Kevin Draper, who wrote the New York Times article, that she was “unloading to a friend about ESPN’s process, not about Maria.”

But, she added, “my own intentions in that conversation, and the opinion of those in charge at ESPN, are not the sum of what matters here — if Maria felt the conversation was upsetting, then it was, and I was the cause of that for her.”

WNBA: Sami Whitcomb scored 26 points and Betnijah Laney added 18 to help the host New York Liberty beat the Dallas Wings 9996.

Obituary: Tom Reich, an agent who negotiated multimilliondollar deals in baseball’s early years of free agency in the 1970s and 1980s, died Friday in Los Angeles. He was 82. His wife said the causes were pancreatic cancer and Alzheimer’s disease.

Colleges: Detroit Tigers thirdbase coach Chip Hale is the new head coach at Arizona, where he won a national title as a player in 1996.