Local Announcing In a Globalizing World

Brian Scalabrine (left) and Mike Gorman (right) providing commentary for a Boston Celtics game. (photo by Boston Globe)

Have you ever sat down to watch a game with a friend where they were a fan of one of the teams and you were a fan of neither of the teams? If you have, chances are that you quickly became annoyed with your friend as they constantly accused the ref of being biased against their team, lamented why the coach wasn’t implementing all of your friend’s preferred tactics, and overall just refused to see the game in anything resembling a fair light. Well if what I’m describing does ring a bell, then you’ve probably got some friends who are passionate about the teams they support, and you shouldn’t hold it against them that they are unable to be unbiased observers of the game. With being a fan of a team usually comes the inability to assess that team’s play with a level head, and that should be expected. Fandom is inherently irrational, why do any of us care what happens to strangers playing a game sometimes hundreds or thousands of miles away from us? Why will I wake up at 4:30 AM on a given Saturday to watch Manchester United play when I’ve never even been to Manchester? Supporting a team is like accepting that team into your family, you love them unconditionally and that unconditional love often renders you incapable of fairly judging them.

So what’s the problem with fan’s irrational dedication to their teams? Isn’t it this illogical devotion that makes us love sports, the ability of players to carry the hopes and dreams of an entire city on their backs? And while the inspiring, sometimes worrying devotion of fans is what gives sports the unique influence in our society that it has, it becomes an issue when it invades what should mostly be an unbiased arbiter of sport: the commentator. In my view, the guiding principle of commentary should be to provide a clear and accurate view of what is happening in the game. While of course you want the commentary to be entertaining and for the commentators to be charismatic, those characteristics should be downstream from providing neutral descriptions, not come at the expense of it. Unfortunately, commentary in the NBA and other organizations like it are not structured for the commentary we hear to be impartial. In fact, the incentives at play often make it difficult for commentators to give an objective view of what they are seeing. 

So how does NBA commentary work? Most games are broadcast on regional sports networks, or RSNs, with both the home and away team having their own broadcast and commentary team that travels with the team for any game that is not nationally televised. The commentary team usually consists of a tradionatal broadcaster doing play-by-play and a former player of the team turned broadcaster doing the color commentary. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that these commentators usually provide biased commentary, they’re set up to be fans of the team above all else. Not only are the broadcasters embedded with the team throughout the regular season, they are also broadcasting to a mostly local audience, a majority of the people watching a Timberwolves vs. Pelicans game on a Tuesday night are people in Minnesota or New Orleans. But if fans of the team like hearing local announcers broadcast a game, what's the issue here, aren’t these local fans most of the audience for these broadcasts anyway? 

To lay my cards on the table, I am a Seattle SuperSonics fan, or maybe I should say I WAS a Seattle SuperSonics fan. Since they moved to Oklahoma City, I haven’t had a NBA team to support, and thus any NBA game I watch I do so as a neutral. The two sports teams I do support, the Seattle Seahawks and Manchester United, play in leagues where the standard is not local commentary, but rather broadcasting on a national scale. Maybe I would enjoy specialized commentators for my favorite teams, and I can see why fans of a team enjoy being able to tune in to watch their team play and have a familiar voice on the broadcast, it’s like having an old friend right there with you on the couch talking you through the game. However, with the proliferation of NBA League Pass, illegal streaming, international broadcasts, and betting sites such as DraftKings and FanDuel, more and more people are tuning into broadcasts as neutrals. When they do tune in, they often encounter a commentary team that is unable to provide an impartial account of how the game is unfolding. Obvious fouls by the broadcaster’s team are waved off as bad calls by the ref, while incredible plays by the opposing team are met with milquetoast reactions instead of the excitement and grandeur that they deserve. Funerals usually have a lighter tone than the broadcast of a team that is losing badly. That simply shouldn’t be the case, broadcasts should be engaging and informative regardless of which team is winning. All of this isn’t to say that national broadcasts are some perfect remedy for this issue, anyone who has tuned into a Mark Jackson and Jeff Van Gundy broadcast will know that they have their flaws too. Maybe there’s something to be said for the excitement a broadcaster can generate when they have a special connection to one team, would we get the same ear-shattering Eric Collins call for a LaMelo Ball to Miles Bridges alley-oop if we only had national broadcasters? Maybe not, but I would counter that argument by saying that few calls are as iconic or thrilling as hearing Mike Breen yell “BANG” after a big 3-pointer, which he does as a national broadcaster. To add to that, a call that gives me goosebumps whenever I listen to it to this day is the “OHH YES, WELCOME TO MANCHESTER UNITED” that followed Anthony Martial’s first goal for the club against Liverpool, a call done by the national broadcaster Martin Tyler. 

From left to right, Mark Jackson, Jeff Van Gundy, and Mike Breen on the commentary desk in 2015. (photo by ESPN images)

The pitfalls of local commentary are not unique to the NBA, as I have noticed many fans have taken issue with Sky Sports’ coverage of Formula 1. Formula 1, similarly to the NBA, licenses their broadcasting rights to a range of networks that disseminate their coverage to their respective local audiences. While many countries have their own commentary team, the U.K, U.S, Canada, Australia, and Ireland all hear the same broadcast from Sky Sports, a British media company. This commentary, done by Martin Brundle and David Croft, tends to, as you might expect, focus on and constantly praise the British drivers. This has annoyed many F1 fans in the English speaking world who have no particular affinity for the British drivers, yet are forced to listen to a broadcast that licks the boots of Lewis Hamilton, George Russell, and Lando Norris while systematically ignoring all other drivers each weekend. The issue here isn’t that the British broadcast is biased to the British drivers, that is to be expected, and honestly Croft and Brundle come across as impartial saints when compared to the one-sided commentary in favor of Max Verstappen done by the Dutch broadcasters over at Ziggo Sport. The issue is that the U.S, Canada, Australia, and Ireland are all forced to listen to a British broadcast that is done primarily for people in Britain. Much like the case of a neutral tuning into a NBA game, this commentary does a poor job of providing the viewer an impartial and accurate picture of what is happening on their TV.

While this whole article seems to be just me railing against local commentators, I don’t want readers to come away thinking that I believe local commentary has no value. Sport is centered around community, so of course people who hold a special place in these communities being able to call a team’s game can be a unique and honestly beautiful thing. I’m sure Hawks fans love the fact that the man who was the defining Hawks player for a generation, Dominique Wilkins, now gets to provide the soundtrack for the rise of another star in Atlanta, Trae Young. The same could be said for fans of the Hornets, who may have grown up watching Dell Curry rain it in from deep only to now hear Dell tell the tale of the ascension of LaMelo Ball. I’m not advocating that these local commentary teams be done away with, rather I’d like to see them become one of several broadcast options for a fan to be able to tune into. Two of my favorite NBA analysts, Nate Duncan and Danny Leroux, provide commentary for one game a week on League Pass, and while I concede that their dry and analytical style might not be everyone, I do think a lot of people would appreciate the insight they provide in their commentary. I personally really enjoyed the Avengers themed broadcast of a Warriors-Pelicans game last year, and the Manning Brothers Monday Night Football Manningcast has been welcomed with widespread acclaim. As we leave this era of cable television behind us and venture into a new era of streaming, I hope the NBA and leagues like it take advantage of this opportunity by providing a diverse array of commentaries to match their ever growing and ever diversifying audiences.