More than nostalgia: How NBC thrived and how ESPN failed with the NBA!

Your report card for the NBA on ABC/ESPN?


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Dorian Breh

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Its true, ESPN tried to make the talking heads and narrative around the game bigger than the game itself

Screaming A Smith is bad television

Where does TNT fit in though?

They showed that having idiots who watch game shows rather than the game is interesting to audiences

The article trying to pretend Van Gundy and Jackson were good commentators is also hilarious...
 

jwinfield

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nikkaz was lookin wild looking back though. :mjlol:
Dxpem6eVYAAUyvg.jpg
 

tremonthustler1

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My Pops Forever RIP
The NBA felt special on NBC. It felt prestigious. I remember, as a kid, being just as excited for the NBA on Christmas as I did for getting gifts.
we were also younger.

Some shyt ain't gonna resonate the same way since we consume things differently.
 

tremonthustler1

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My Pops Forever RIP
Yes, the Tesh theme will almost certainly return, but Jim Fagan passed away years ago, Marv Albert is retired, and Bob Costas and dikk Ebersol have not worked for NBC in years. Many of the accoutrements that made the NBA on NBC special — from the lasers forming the NBC peacock to Fagan’s voice-of-God introducing the participating teams (“TO-day, it’s the Chicago Bulls versus the Or-lan-do Magic!”) — had been shortened or phased out by the end of the network’s run and are unlikely to return in the new iteration. There will undoubtedly be more ESPN NBA alums on the new version than veterans of the original NBC run, if any return at all. Yet it is hard to blame viewers for retreating into the past given what ESPN is doing in the present.

That's a big reason why NBC was loved. Simply hearing Roundball Rock isn't gonna make the presentation tolerable.
 

Rick Fox at UNC

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Pretty Boys
But it isn't just the NBA and it isn't just ESPN.

You're dealing with an audience who has become increasingly suspect of heroes and hero worship, especially of the American kind.

You're also dealing with an audience who doesn't possess the attention span nor inclination to exalt.

 
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