The Return of the NBA on NBC

[EmpireFalls]

Hot take but the NBC coverage wasn’t all that great, it was just 30 years ago and you were a kid and it all seemed to be a much bigger deal than it is today. Nostalgia sells, though.

[Letsgokings]

Yeah the nba used to be so cool

[lessthanjake]

No love for ESPN here. No fans for Stephen A, Doris? How about their cardboard commentators?

I don’t actually mind ESPN’s in-game commentators. In fact, I think they’ve got some good ones. It’s the halftime and post-game stuff that is just completely pathetic. Like I don’t understand how there’s anyone at ESPN who thinks it’s even remotely acceptable. The quality of TNT just makes it even more maddening, but it’s an absolute joke by any objective standard.

[dk1115]

That theme music revives my soul.

[flranger]

ESPN is Mike Breen surrounded by complete garbage

[Chinook]

The "villain" in this story is the NBA, not any individual broadcast company. The NBA doubling its revenue just means fans are going to have to pay more for games, whether than be through cable bundles or subscriptions. Theoretically, NBC getting the deal means more games available by just using an antenna, but I'm sure they'll show games on USA or NBC Sports Network or some other Comcast station unless they're only taking a small package and leaving the bulk of it to Turner.

The NBA isn't going to live within its means until the bigger fools scheme that sports broadcasting rights breaks. The NBA tricks companies like Disney, Warner or Comcast into paying way too much for broadcasting rights. Those companies trick cable companies into paying way too much to carry those stations. Those cable companies trick non-sports-fan consumers to pay way too much for packages containing channels they don't care about to subsidizes those who do. Now, folks like Amazon and Google are getting into it, and they're using their massive losses to justify to courts why they aren't monopolies as they forego profit for market share. Eventually though, they're going to drop the act and charge more than the cable companies did because they can't subsidize the cost with non-fans.

The NBA could survive as a direct-to-consumer model, pricing its games based on what people are willing to and able to pay and earning whatever additional revenue they can through sponsorship deals, collaborations with media companies and whatever else. That's a possible future -- a sustainable, consumer-friendly service. But we aren't going to get that as long as growth is seen as the only way to measure an organization's worth. It's just fundamentally incompatible with trend of record contracts, team evaluations and TV deals. So we'll just have to pay more and enjoy the short windows when companies irrationally price their services at a loss hoping to create a market base that will still be there when prices jump up 300 percent. We'll see. For all my ranting, I'll pony up if it makes even a little sense to do so.

[SpreeChokeJob]

I loved the NBA on NBC growing up, and god knows they could put on a better product than ESPN/ABC does, who are the absolute dirt worst. I'd be all for the change just to get it away from those clowns and into the hands of someone at least semi-competent, if not actually competent.

That said, it won't be the same. The thing that made it work back then wasn't just the song (even though it was great), but the fact that during a week in the regular season the only time you got to see Jordan was on a Sunday in January, unless you lived in Chicago or he was playing your team.

The double/triple headers were an event. You got to see Patrick Ewing against Barkley, then Jordan against Zeke, then Magic against Stockton/Malone. And you can trade all those names with a few others, but the point is I got to see Magic play growing up in the playoffs, and that handful of times on NBC.

Then add the fact that if you didn't have cable, there was a whopping 4-8 channels or whatever to choose from in your city, so usually this was the best thing going on at the time. And even if you did have cable, it still probably was the best thing going on at the time.

That experience is somewhat with TNT currently. It hasn’t been about the game for awhile, but Inside the NBA is as memorable as can be, especially during the playoffs. There have been some legendary shows with their crew. And NBC won’t be able to recreate it because the next available broadcast team is a steep STEEP drop off in talent. TNT is even having problems creating a second team with the chemistry of Ernie, Chuck, Kenny, and Shaq. It’s Inside the NBA or nothing.