Even presidential candidates wanted a Woj Bomb.
Vice President Kamala Harris’ camp wanted former ESPN NBA insider Adrian Wojnarowski to break the news that Minnesota Governor Tim Walz had been selected as her running mate in the 2024 presidential election, Sports Illustrated revealed in a profile of the new St. Bonaventure’s men’s basketball general manager.
“Consider: In August, representatives from Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign reached out,” SI reported Thursday morning. “They had settled on their nominee for vice president and wanted Woj to break it. Alas, another outlet scooped him before he could.”
That the Vice President wanted a sports reporter to break said news shows the standing Wojnarowski had among national reporters and the reach of his platform before he left journalism.
Wojnarowski has 6.4 million X followers and developed a reputation for his scoops, which would be labeled as Woj Bombs.
NBA fans always knew to follow his account during free agency and the trade deadline since Wojnarowski could tweet a franchise-altering move at any moment.
Not many, though, would have expected Wojnarowski to break political news.
Wojnarowski once made political news when he received a suspension from ESPN after responding to a press release from Missouri senator Josh Hawley about the NBA’s relationship with China with “f–k you.”
Breaking the VP announcement — it’s unclear which publication broke the news before it was officially announced on Aug. 6 — would have been one of the great Woj Bombs before his shocking ESPN exit in September.
All the long hours chasing scoops — no matter the size — eventually became too big of a burden and he instead now works for his alma mater.
Wojnarowski also revealed in the SI profile that he was diagnosed with prostate cancer in March and that factored into his decision.
He said his prognosis is “good.”
“Cancer didn’t force him out, Woj insists. But it did bring some clarity,” Chris Mannix wrote. “‘I didn’t want to spend one more day of my life waiting on someone’s MRI or hitting an agent at 1 a.m. about an ankle sprain,’ he says.”
