ESPN NBA announcer Doris Burke is set to make her debut Wednesday as part of the network’s new number-one broadcast team alongside Mike Breen and Doc Rivers, and former colleague Bomani Jones stood up for her.
Burke has become a trailblazer for women in sports media, becoming the first female to be on the call for several men’s sporting events including the NBA.
For those critics out there who feel like Burke is unqualified to sit alongside Breen and Rivers, Bomani Jones told Front Office Sports that those people should reevaluate their positions.
“Basketball is not gender-specific,” he said. “Doris Burke played basketball. Doris Burke has been around basketball. There is no plausible argument that anybody can make for why a woman would not be as capable of doing this job than any man would be.”
Bomani Jones also said that her background in the sport says everything you need to know about her qualifications. This isn’t ESPN just throwing a woman on the broadcast for the sake of being diverse.
“With Doris, there’s zero novelty factor involved in her doing basketball,” he said. “She is a basketball player who knows a lot about basketball; talking about basketball. Her name just happens to be Doris. That’s it.”
Jones felt like those taking issue with Burke having this opportunity because she’s a woman is an argument that caters to the lowest common denominator.
“There’s nothing else you can point to,” Jones said. “And so I think that’s going to make it, for her, a very easy transition into this – at least in terms of dealing with the Neanderthals who always struggle with women getting to places that they’re not used to.”
