“The NBA on NBC” picked up where it left off Tuesday night.
23 years ago, the network’s final NBA regular season game went to double-overtime as the Blazers beat the Lakers in a raucous game that included fans pelting the court with plush dolls bearing the likeness of Bill Walton (who was on the call alongside Steve “Snapper” Jones and Marv Albert). On Tuesday, the Rockets and Thunder went double-overtime in one of the better Opening Night games in league history, ranking somewhere with Kareem’s game winner in Magic Johnson’s career debut (also one of the last Opening Night game to air on broadcast television prior to Tuesday night).
“We are starting at 10 out of 10,” NBC play-by-play voice Mike Tirico said toward the end of Rockets-Thunder. While the context was the competitive gauntlet that is the Western Conference, the quote applies to much of that opening telecast. When the night started, the focus was on NBC’s return to the NBA and how the network might replicate elements of its previous run. But once the game started, it became clear that the biggest way the new NBA on NBC could replicate the old was through its approach.
When George Costanza accidentally had his boss airbrushed out of a family picture, a photo shop employee was able to recreate the image to the best of his ability. The end result was a cartoon that resembled “a Peanuts character.” But realistically, the photo shop guy had done the best he could. “I had to draw that guy from memory,” he told Costanza. “Considering, I think that’s damn good!”
After 23 long years, NBC is trying to recreate a broadcast from a different era of television, a different era of the NBA, and a very different era of NBC. Prior to Tuesday, the last NBA game on NBC was Game 4 of the 2002 NBA Finals. Not only was that before the Comcast-NBCUniversal merger, it was before the merger that created NBCUniversal in the first place. It was an NBC Sports run by Dick Ebersol at an NBC owned by General Electric. There are some holdovers from back then, but the team trying to recreate the magic of the old days largely consists of people who were not at NBC at the time.
Considering, one might say NBC did ‘damn good.’ Or, if that is perhaps a step too far, one might say at least that NBC did as well as could be reasonably expected in recreating production elements that are no longer in use anywhere. The opening of the NBA logo floating over an NBC Sports logo at center court was flawlessly executed and a nice touch — a use of a few seconds to set a tone rather than sell an ad. The modern sports broadcast generally does not begin with these sort of accoutrements, and even the old “NBA on NBC” had dropped them (even the laser forming the NBC peacock) after the 1999-2000 season.
Were the new lasers somewhat janky? A bit. Would have it been better to hear the TV version of “Roundball Rock” NBC used in its prior run, rather than the extended original version? Yes. Was the Jim Fagan AI lacking any of the real-life version’s punchy, energetic delivery? Absolutely. (It is quite clear that AI has no ability whatsoever — as of yet — to replicate human enthusiasm. On ESPN’s “SportsCenter for You,” an AI version of anchor Gary Striewski reads highlights with an abjectly lifeless monotone that, coming out of the real-life version, would probably prompt concerns from viewers.)
But this “NBA on NBC” is not that “NBA on NBC.” No matter how well you replicate Mr. Kruger from memory, there is a limit to what you can do. The nostalgic elements were well done given the limitations, and with a few tweaks can be further refined (certainly, replacing Fagan AI with the original recording of him saying “This is the NBA on NBC!” should be doable). But to borrow from an NBC executive of years gone by, you cannot — as Jack Donaghy once suggested — make it 1997 again through science or magic.
Fortunately, science and magic are not your only choices.
As previously argued, the goal of the new NBA on NBC should be to replicate the mindset of the old version, rather than perfect fidelity to the production elements.
The old NBA on NBC was a combination of promotion and journalism, ballyhoo without hyperbole. It was making every game seem significant, not by pretending it was high art or the greatest game ever played, but by finding the angles. The 1994 Rockets-Knicks NBA Finals, as host Bob Costas acknowledged on-air, lacked the artistry of prior series. So instead of pretending otherwise, he found a compelling story to tell. Costas opened Game 5 — the infamous O.J. Simpson game — by highlighting the career journey of Pat Riley. The magic of sports is that there is usually a compelling hook somewhere, even if some are more compelling than others.
The NBA on NBC was something else, too. For all of the nostalgia, it was distinctive without being self-referential. Yes, the announcers consistently went to break saying “you’re watching the NBA on NBC,” and yes, NBC would outfit players and coaches with apparel bearing its logo during interviews. But “the NBA on NBC” was not an end to itself. It instead understood its role as a conduit between the viewers and the games.
You were never watching for Costas, Marv Albert, Hannah Storm, Ahmad Rashad (or John Tesh), but they elevated the game. There was a risk of the new version approaching ESPN levels of self-promotion.
It was somewhat of a twist that the person who most embodied the old “NBA on NBC” style was a veteran of ESPN’s NBA coverage. Things started sort of shaky Tuesday night with technical difficulties in the pregame show — handled well by host Maria Taylor, who in one night on NBC exceeded any of her work on ESPN’s “NBA Countdown” — but once the telecast shifted into the hands of lead play-by-play voice Mike Tirico, it shifted to another level.
Whatever one might think of Tirico — he is absolutely revered by his colleagues in the industry, but any mention of him online is usually accompanied by some heckling — there is no question at this point that he is the Costas of his time. A decade ago, he was on ESPN’s NBA “B” team and calling “Monday Night Football” in the days before the NFL started giving ESPN good games. By no means unimpressive, but by no means the top of the industry heap.
Now, he is NBC’s top voice across the board, from the Olympics to the NFL and now the NBA. And as his assignments have improved, so too has his performance. One could cast a skeptical glance at the idea that Tirico, who was uncannily suited to sports television even at a young age, had any room left to improve. But there was a time when one could credibly argue that he was better in studio than on games, and even that mild critique no longer seems applicable. His biggest weakness might have been his overly polished delivery — which at times could come off as rehearsed and unnatural — but just since taking the “Sunday Night Football” job he has managed to weave style and substance in a way that comes off seamlessly to at least this viewer.
If it was once the case that Tirico was better suited to the studio than to games, the present-day version now blends the best of his studio work — deftly directing viewers from storylines to games to news and information — with a play-by-play that hits the sports TV sweet spot of elevating the big moments without overshadowing them.
Tirico was not always able to do this effectively when he last worked NBA games for ESPN/ABC; sometimes that mix was deployed in distracting ways, like when he spent too much of a Mavericks playoff game talking about Josh Howard’s then-recent admission of offseason marijuana use (which passed for controversy in 2008).
Perhaps that is the difference between NBC Sports’ big game production and an ESPN style that has at times been more of what Joe Theismann once called an “issue-oriented broadcast.”
NBC Sports is by now well-practiced in the art of big game production. Opening Night of the NBA season is a “big game” in a way that the ordinary drumbeat of an 82-game schedule will not be. The magic of the original NBA on NBC was finding the hook to make a regional Sonics-Hornets game feel significant, and by the end of that run, that big game energy was largely spent outside of the most significant playoff games.
It will be impossible for NBC to maintain the standard set Tuesday night throughout the rest of this season, but if Opening Night is an indication of what the high notes will look like, NBA viewers may be well-served come Sunday nights in the winter and playoff nights in the spring.
Now, no broadcast or broadcaster can successfully make a gourmet meal out of nothing, and the attempt usually comes off as so fake that it backfires. NBC was helped Tuesday night by the fact that the play on the court matched the standard set by the broadcast. That is an element of all of this — luck (or perhaps Donaghy’s ‘magic’).
The old “NBA on NBC” had a tremendous amount of luck, and while viewers in Portland and Sacramento might put scare-quotes around that word, there is no better way to describe a 12-year run in which every Finals featured Jordan, Shaq or New York. CBS ended its 17-year tenure with Portland-Detroit and ABC started its ongoing run with San Antonio-New Jersey. NBC never had a title series as unattractive.
For all the complaints about the quality of play in the NBA, those who actually watch the games — and not selectively edited lowlight reels on social media — know that there is high quality basketball being played out there, if you can find it. It was good for the league that the first game of the season, and the first NBC game since 2002, was played at such a high level. NBC has Magic-Hawks in a couple of weeks. Will that be as good?
Perhaps the best praise that can be offered for Tuesday’s broadcast is that by the second overtime, “Roundball Rock” was no longer the focus. That is the thing about those old NBA on NBC production elements. They elevated the game, and you knew to expect them, but you were not tuning in for them. On the biggest plays in those years, NBC would go to break without its Tesh theme, letting the ambient sound (usually accompanied by an in-arena soundtrack) take viewers into break.
It has been a little odd to see how Roundball Rock has become an end in itself. It is arguably the best NBA theme music ever created — though there are no shortage of viewers who will advocate for the CBS theme that preceded it — and yet it is still just theme music. Having Tesh perform it live on NBC’s “Today” show Tuesday morning seemed odd. A little Tesh goes a long way, and in more ways than one. The song works when setting up and amplifying the action on the court. Outside of that context (like for example a Kevin Hart gambling ad), it is just music. One wonders what the non-sports audience for “Today” thought of the whole thing.
Fortunately on night one, like those nights in the 1990s glory days, the game was the focus. Perhaps that is a low bar, but for an NBA where opinion and debate have largely overshadowed all else for the past 23 years, it was a sorely needed change. And a good start to the new era of the NBA on television.
