Blake Griffin opens The Stepback with a critique of sports media

Blake Griffin opens his new show, The Stepback, by turning the attention back on the people who spent years talking about his basketball career.

The first episode, published October 20 on the show’s YouTube channel, asks what happened to sports journalism. Griffin uses his own experience of being discussed on television to introduce a comedy-led argument about beat reporting, insiders and debate shows. The episode is available in full on YouTube, and the series also launched on Prime Video.

Early in the program, he revisits an old debate about whether he was overhyped. That gives the criticism a personal starting point: the former player remembers being evaluated, while the host now gets to answer. The segment then widens into his view of how sports news is gathered and presented.

A television project built around a former player

Alan Siegel’s October 20 profile for The Ringer traces the show’s origins to Griffin and his Clippers teammates growing frustrated with television arguments about their own team. Siegel reports that Griffin wanted to make the program before he retired, then prepared for the hosting job by practicing with a teleprompter.

That reporting helps explain the format. Griffin carries a scripted address to the audience, with clips and jokes supporting his argument. It gives him more room to stay with one subject than the short exchanges he criticizes in the premiere.

His central distinction in the episode is between reporting that explains what happened and performances built around disagreement. Those judgments belong to Griffin; the jokes and edited clips are his case for them. The episode’s historical examples are context for his argument, rather than newly reported developments about the people shown.

The Ringer reports that new episodes are planned for Tuesdays this fall. The premiere runs about 29 minutes and ends with a comedy sketch around an unnamed source, extending the same subject through the closing segment.

Sources

• The Stepback with Blake Griffin: What Happened to Sports Journalism?
• The Ringer: Inside Blake Griffin’s quest to bring sports to late-night TV
• LA Sports Report via Yahoo: Griffin’s new show launches on YouTube and Prime Video