Omar Raja often takes to social media to showcase some of the most surprising or complex plays in sports. On Sunday, he will find himself right in the middle of an intricate maneuver.
When ABC wraps its NBA coverage mid-Sunday afternoon, the task of keeping sports fans hanging on to the Disney-owned network as the Oscars get started falls to Raja. He will be featured for half an hour during ABC’s “On the Red Carpet at the Oscars,” offering some of the hot takes — the crux of his social-media series “Hot Take Hotline.”
“We are trying to keep some of that sports audience, and make it into a combination of sports and culture,” says Raja, who joined ESPN in 2020 after parlaying his “House of Highlights” Instagram account into a full-blown cultural phenomenon that was eventually taken over by a predecessor company of Warner Bros. Discovery. Raja doesn’t throw touchdowns or kick goals, but the ways he finds to talk about them and get others to join the viral conversation has proven to be an important part of sports chatter in the streaming era.
He believes his hot takes will amplify sports chatter for NBA fans, who — hopefully –will stick around longer than some of them might have anticipated. Many of the topics he raises are sent to him by fans. “I get every single take you can think of,” he says. “I’ve gotten ‘Pop Tarts are the most underrated snack of all time” and ‘Popcorn is overrated.’” The conversations, he adds, “are not just sports.”
ABC’s early red-carpet coverage will involve ABC News mainstays Linsey Davis, Whit Johnson, Lara Spencer and veteran sports-and-entertainment journalist Chris Connelly. Raja got a few minutes last year, and his expanded time on screen shows Disney eager to find ways to keep viewers rooted as the company invests more heavily in live programming. Over the course of eight weeks in early 2027, Disney’s TV and streaming properties will feature the College Football Playoffs, the Oscars, the Grammys and Super Bowl LXI — the first time ABC will show the Big Game since 2006.
“Sports ties in to so much,” says Raja, because sports telecasts “are the most viewed things in terms of live TV. There’s always a way to tie in interest.” He thinks a series of big 2025 movies with sports themes, including “Marty Supreme,” “F1” and “The Smashing Machine,” will help him talk about topics to keep sports fans and Hollywood aficionados interested in equal measure.
“Having Omar return as a contributor to this year’s pre-show is a natural fit,” says Adrianne Anderson, senior vice president of content development at ABC. “As one of ESPN’s leading digital strategists and social media voices, his distinctive perspective makes him the ideal bridge from ESPN’s NBA coverage on ABC to an evening of Oscars red carpet coverage.”
Once his 30-minute appearance on ABC ends, Raja will move to social media, where he will stay on the red carpet, hoping to interview celebrities as well as any athletes who may be attending the annual movie awards. He’s ready to ask sports-related questions, but also bring up topics that just might generate fun conversation, like “Name a classic movie you’ve never seen.”
In addition to his brief red-carpet appearance last year, Raja created content from the Met Gala last year. Any trepidation he might have had about trying to mix sports and culture has vanished, he says. “The main idea behind it is just to be honest,” he says. “We want it to feel very genuine.
