ESPN denies report it offered Steve Kerr $7 million contract to join network's NBA coverage

The show is perfect without him

It's very likely that ESPN hoped Steve Kerr would part ways with the Golden State Warriors and join the network's NBA coverage.

But ESPN is adamant that the network did not offer him $7 million per year, as "reported" by Awful Announcing.

Steve Kerr stays with the Warriors on a two-year deal as ESPN denies reports it offered the coach $7 million annually for its NBA broadcast coverage. (Getty Images)

Burke Magnus, ESPN executive vice president of programming and original content, pushed back Sunday after the sports media blog published a story headlined, "ESPN reportedly offered Steve Kerr $7M annually." Magnus quote-posted the story on X and wrote, "For anyone that may care, this is not true."

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Awful Announcing later updated its story with a stronger denial from Magnus.

"We have too much respect for Coach Kerr. We were not even going to engage until he made a decision on coaching," Magnus said, according to the blog.

The original report came from Tim Kawakami of the San Francisco Standard, who did not say that ESPN offered Kerr $7 million. Kawakami wrote Saturday that Kerr "can walk into a top analyst’s job anytime he wants," that ESPN was "especially aggressive about the chase" and was "probably offering up to $7 million per." He also wrote that ESPN was willing to meet almost any possible condition, including keeping Kerr away from hot-take panel shows.

Awful Announcing, which lived up to its name with this story, decided to write that ESPN offered Kerr $7 million per year. The network clearly did not appreciate the misleading aggregation and responded publicly, which only underscored how strongly ESPN objected to the framing.

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