Blake Griffin is taking what he learned on the basketball court to primetime television in a surprise career move since retiring from the NBA in 2024.
The former NBA star is launching a weekly late-night show on Prime Video in collaboration with YouTube and Amazon’s podcast studio, Wondery. Titled The Stepback with Blake Griffin, the show will feature a live-studio audience, with Griffin behind the desk weighing in on the sports topics making headlines and their intersection with modern culture. This latest partnership expands his relationship with Amazon, where he previously served as a studio analyst on Prime Video’s NBA coverage last season.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Griffin will touch on a variety of hot topics impacting the sports world, including gambling, NIL, taxpayer-funded stadiums, pot use, analytics and the state of sports journalism. Griffin shared his excitement about the new venture on Instagram, writing, “Finally, a chance to recreate the last few seasons of my career: sitting down. The Stepback. Coming soon.”
Griffin’s foray into the genre moves beyond late-night TV’s familiar format by placing sports and his commentary at the center of the conversation. That specificity could be the formula that revives late night.
As reported by The Observer, Nielsen data showed that The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, which concluded in May, had lost one million viewers over the past eight years. And Colbert’s Late Show isn’t the only late-night program to take a major hit. Jimmy Kimmel Live!, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and Late Night with Seth Meyers have all experienced their viewership plummet over the years.
And while part of late-night TV’s decline can be attributed to shifts in audience behaviors and the rise of other forms of media like podcasts and YouTube being the dominant force in modern media consumption, Griffin’s foray into the field presents an opportunity that could be copied across different distinct genres.
The former NBA star has been steadily building a presence in the entertainment industry, appearing in projects across a variety of genres. In 2021, he appeared on an episode of Saturday Night Live, landed a role in the 2023 remake of the 1992 film White Men Can’t Jump, and even made a cameo as himself on The Simpsons last year, among other projects. He’s also dabbled in the comedy space, doing standup at an open mic event at the Hollywood Laugh Factory in 2011.
Griffin’s decision to put his own spin on late-night TV introduces another perspective to late night that, historically, has been dominated by white men. While late-night TV has made strides by creating opportunities for Black hosts like Arsenio Hall, Trevor Noah, Mo’Nique, and Amber Ruffin, more diverse voices and stories still need representation.
With years of experience navigating sports and entertainment, Griffin is poised to bring a distinct perspective to the late-night landscape, ultimately offering a fresh blueprint for the genre as it enters a new phase.
The Stepback with Blake Griffin debuts with its first episode on October 20, with a new episode every Tuesday.