Maria Taylor

Taylor went from hosting the last game of the NBA Finals on ABC on a Tuesday in July to immediately flying to Tokyo for her new employer, NBC Sports, and beginning her work at the Summer Olympics’ opening ceremony that Friday. Taylor arrived at NBC Sports, after eight years at ESPN, just weeks after The New York Times reported that her ESPN colleague Rachel Nichols in a secretly recorded phone call suggested Taylor was picked to host last year’s NBA Finals because the network was under pressure to address its “crappy longtime record on diversity.”