Welcome to episode No. 34 of the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast with Richard Deitsch. This week's guest is ESPN's Sage Steele, who hosts NBA Countdown on ESPN and ABC.

In this episode, Steele discusses how she landed the Countdown job, whether she should have a say in who works with her as an analyst, how she viewed her on-air relationship with Bill Simmons and the perceived creative differences between them, whether a sports audience cares about race, how being a bi-racial woman impacted her sports television role modeling growing up, the most media-friendly NBA coaches and players (hear why she thinks Russell Westbrook has gotten a raw deal), racism in the sports media, what social media is like for her, and much more.

A reminder: you can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes (https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/si-media-podcast-richard-deitsch/id997819235?mt=2) and Stitcher (http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/panoply/si-media-podcast-with-richard-deitsch), and you can view all of SI's podcasts at si.com/podcasts. If you have any feedback, questions or suggestions, please comment here or tweet at Deitsch.

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