{"id":730960,"date":"2026-05-10T21:21:17","date_gmt":"2026-05-10T21:21:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/730960\/"},"modified":"2026-05-10T21:21:17","modified_gmt":"2026-05-10T21:21:17","slug":"espn-reportedly-offered-steve-kerr-7m-annually","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/730960\/","title":{"rendered":"ESPN reportedly offered Steve Kerr $7M annually"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Steve Kerr agreed to a two-year contract to return as Golden State Warriors head coach on Saturday, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/story\/_\/id\/48724788\/steve-kerr-agrees-2-year-deal-remain-warriors\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">per ESPN\u2019s Shams Charania<\/a>, closing the door on what would have been one of the more significant media hires in recent NBA history.<\/p>\n<p>The deal keeps Kerr as the highest-paid coach in the NBA, having previously earned approximately $17.5 million per year, a figure his new contract is expected to surpass. For context on what he walked away from, <a href=\"https:\/\/sfstandard.com\/2026\/05\/09\/steve-kerr-warriors-reunion-coach-kawakami\/?utm_source=native_share&amp;utm_medium=site_buttons&amp;utm_campaign=site_buttons\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">according to Tim Kawakami of the San Francisco Standard<\/a>, ESPN \u2014 <a href=\"https:\/\/marcstein.substack.com\/p\/sunday-best-so-much-more-of-the-latest?utm_campaign=email-post&amp;r=5jkm20&amp;utm_source=substack&amp;utm_medium=email\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">which reportedly was \u201caggressively\u201d pursuing Kerr<\/a> \u2014 was willing to offer the Warriors head coach up to $7 million annually to come to the network and was willing to meet almost any condition he put forward, including a specific exemption from hot-take panel shows.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cKerr can walk into a top analyst\u2019s job anytime he wants,\u201d Kawakami wrote. \u201cESPN was especially aggressive about the chase, probably offering up to $7 million per, and I heard was willing to meet almost any possible condition of his, including staying away from all hot-take panel shows.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That ESPN was willing to bend its own programming structure to land Kerr says something about how badly the network wanted him. As Brendon Kleen <a href=\"https:\/\/awfulannouncing.com\/nba\/pursuing-steve-kerr-leaving-warriors.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">wrote for Awful Announcing<\/a> last week, ESPN has used a fourth different broadcast team in as many years for the NBA Finals and has been searching for a signature pairing <a href=\"https:\/\/awfulannouncing.com\/nba\/pursuing-steve-kerr-leaving-warriors.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">since laying off Jeff Van Gundy and Mark Jackson<\/a> in 2023. NBC came in with Mike Tirico and Reggie Miller. Prime Video has Ian Eagle and Stan Van Gundy.<\/p>\n<p>ESPN, the home of the Finals, still hasn\u2019t found its answer. Kerr, who called NBA games for TNT from 2003-07 and again from 2011-15 before taking the Warriors job, would have been exactly that.<\/p>\n<p>Instead, Kerr is staying in Golden State for at least two more seasons.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Steve Kerr agreed to a two-year contract to return as Golden State Warriors head coach on Saturday, per&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":725383,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3786],"tags":[7,479,164,4025,4024,6,1007,863,255],"class_list":["post-730960","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golden-state-warriors","tag-basketball","tag-golden-state","tag-golden-state-warriors","tag-goldenstate","tag-goldenstatewarriors","tag-nba","tag-nba-on-espn","tag-steve-kerr","tag-warriors"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116552380218354755","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/730960","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=730960"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/730960\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/725383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=730960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=730960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=730960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}