ESPN reporter Royce Young will be wearing a new hat starting this upcoming season. The longtime journalist will be joining the Oklahoma City Thunder basketball operations team, he announced on Twitter.
Young will contribute to content on podcasts, TV and the team website.
For more than a decade, Young has been a go-to source for Thunder information. He founded the Daily Thunder blog in 2008 during his final semester at the University of Oklahoma and joined ESPN in 2014. His reporting with ESPN stretched broader and more league-wide than the Thunder, but he continued reporting about Oklahoma City in different capacities while there.
In a tweet explaining his decision to leave ESPN and join the Thunder, he called Oklahoma home.
Oklahoma is home. I love this state. And to be able to stay here and work for an organization like the Thunder, doing creative, interesting, impactful things is something I couldn’t turn down.
— Royce Young (@royceyoung) September 7, 2021
It’s a bit of an unorthodox move, I realize, but I really believe in it, and more importantly, the amazing people that work for the Thunder already. Experiencing it from the inside is the kind of invaluable education a writer dreams of.
— Royce Young (@royceyoung) September 7, 2021