With Jeff Van Gundy leaving ESPN, the network’s main NBA broadcast team needed an addition. The Worldwide Leader found that addition in Doris Burke and Doc Rivers. The two will join legendary play-by-play voice Mike Breen on the call.
The news of two new faces on the broadcast meant Van Gundy’s co-analyst Mark Jackson has been relegated.
On The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz on Wednesday, Dan said he’s unbothered by the move considering he rarely watches a game listening to the broadcasters.
“To me, as someone who largely consumes these things with the sound down, I almost don’t care at all who is broadcasting that you could only get my attention if you’re truly awful,” Le Batard said. “And most of the other pieces I view as interchangeable. So I imagine Doc Rivers and Doris Burke and Mike Breen will be about as good as Jeff Van Gundy, Mark Jackson and Mike Breen.”
Stugotz chimed in saying the broadcasting pairings are a nonfactor in whether or not he watches an NBA contest.
“I don’t care if no one’s calling the game. If it’s a game I want to watch, I’m going to watch the NBA game,” he said. “Like people get outraged about this stuff, and I guess I understand why. But if you want to watch a basketball game, you’re not tuning in because Mike Breen is calling it.”
Amin Elhassan added that the decision to go with some fresh analysts alongside Breen was largely due in part to the fact that Jeff Van Gundy, and to some extent Jackson, wasn’t shy about being overly critical of officiating and things like load management. He said it doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things who calls the games, but it made sense that the league and ESPN would want to try to go in a different direction.
“However many millions of people are watching, this is the most watched event in our sport, and you’re getting bombarded with kind of a negativity,” Elhassan said. “I can see from the league’s standpoint of ‘Yo, we’re trying to do a thing here. We’re trying to sell this. We’re trying to like let people be excited about it and be optimistic about it.'”
“You do need a breath of positivity in it,” Amin added. “From that standpoint, I don’t think you’re right. People don’t turn off or turn on the game, but our overall perception of the game can be colored by the people who are bringing it to us at the highest profile moments.”
