Blake Griffin will host a new late-night sports talk show titled The Stepback with Blake Griffin, the former NBA star shared Wednesday. Griffin announced the weekly program as a partnership with Amazon Studios, YouTube and Wondery, and said the project is being produced by Mortal Media, the film and television company he co-founded with former NFL veteran Ryan Kalil. The Hollywood Reporter was the first to report the news.
The six-time All-Star said the series will debut Oct. 20, the beginning of the NBA regular season, and that episodes were recorded in front of a live studio audience. New installments are scheduled to air every Tuesday, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The show is billed as a platform for Griffin’s opinions on current sports topics, with the coverage to include subjects such as gambling and NIL, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Griffin previously worked as a studio analyst for Amazon’s NBA coverage last season.
Griffin announced the series on social media, captioning the post: “Finally, a chance to recreate the last few seasons of my career: sitting down. The Stepback. Coming soon.” In a planned news release obtained by The Hollywood Reporter, Griffin said he had “watched and idolized shows like ‘The Daily Show’ and ‘Last Week Tonight,’ so to follow in their footsteps while putting my own stamp on the genre is an amazing opportunity that I’m grateful to take part in.”
Griffin has prior entertainment experience, including a 2021 appearance on Saturday Night Live, a cameo on The Simpsons last year, and a role in the 2023 remake of White Men Can’t Jump. He has also dabbled in stand-up, performing “Slam Dunk poetry” at an open-mic event at the Hollywood Laugh Factory in 2011 and again in Montreal in 2016. Now, he will move into the late-night arena.
