Ian Eagle was a guest on Papa and Lund on KNBR in San Francisco on Wednesday. The TNT broadcaster was asked how he goes about gathering information and understanding what new off-court stories are shaping conversations about the series.
He said that every game day starts with a full crew breakfast at 10 AM where stories and ideas are thrown out. That is just the beginning though because one meeting wouldn’t be nearly enough.
“If you’re doing paint by numbers in these series, if you just go in and say ’Oh, we’ll just report what we see on the court,’ that’s just not enough certainly in this day and age with information flying around the way it is,” Ian Eagle said.
Coaches’ meetings can be a big part of the preparation, as are check-ins with team PR staffs. He said the goal is to have an overflow of information.
He described being minutes away from he and analyst Jim Jackson meeting with Warriors coach Steve Kerr ahead of Game 4 when information about the coach’s Covid diagnosis came out. Instantly, he knew plans would have to change.
“We were supposed to meet with Steve Kerr at 5:30 local time. At 520, Jared Greenberg runs out of our room and we’re looking at each other like ‘what the hell is going on here? That’s the fastest I ever saw that dude move.’ And he clearly got some information and within 2 minutes there’s a tweet and two minutes after that we get a call from Golden State PR.”
Eagle said that in that situation, all you can do is think about how you are going to set the table for the game with the information you have rather than be frustrated with what you had prepared now being irrelevant.
“That means you’re changing your open. That means your changing your storylines to start the game and Jared’s hit. I think it’s just a full team effort to make sure you’ve got the narratives and what the audience needs to know.”
