Ahead of his return to NBA broadcasts as the lead play-by-play announcer for NBC Sports presentations of games within the Association, Mike Tirico will be at Wells Fargo Center behind the microphone. Tirico, who has served as the lead voice of Sunday Night Football for the last several seasons and Olympic Games host, will be sitting in for Kate Scott as the play-by-play voice of the Philadelphia 76ers on Monday night at 7 p.m. EST as the team faces the Portland Trail Blazers.
As first reported by Rob Torne of The Philadelphia Inquirer, Tirico will also be calling a Boston Celtics game Wednesday night at 7 p.m. EST on NBC Sports Boston as he gains practice repetitions for his role on the national broadcasts in the fall. For Monday night’s live game broadcast, Tirico will be working alongside Alaa Abdelnaby and Taryn Hatcher on NBC Sports Philadelphia. Two days later, he will work alongside Brian Scalabrine and Abby Chin, along with Drew Carter for pregame and postgame coverage.
“What a fun opportunity to get a little run in before we get started next fall,” Tirico said in a statement. “I am thrilled to get back in the building and call a couple of games while working with our talented regional teams in Philadelphia and Boston. Sincere thanks to my friends Kate Scott and Drew Carter for letting me sit in their chair for an evening.”
These instances will mark the first NBA game Tirico has called in many years, although he has experience behind the microphone for approximately 375 previous occurrences. Tirico previously worked at ESPN and called NBA regular-season and playoff games for 15 seasons on television and radio. Throughout his time with the network, he also served as the studio host for ESPN NBA coverage and presented the Larry O’Brien Trophy to the league champions.
Comcast, the parent company of NBCUniversal, will be commencing an 11-year media rights deal with the NBA this fall that grants it distribution rights for up to 100 NBA regular-season contests per year, an opening night doubleheader and NBA All-Star Weekend events. The NBC television network will also broadcast one of two Conference Finals series in six of 11 years in the deal, rotating with Amazon’s Prime Video. The company will reportedly pay the league $2.45 billion per year for these rights, which also includes presentations of select WNBA and USA Basketball contests.
NBC Sports has announced the additions of Noah Eagle, Reggie Miller and Jamal Crawford to its broadcast team surrounding NBA coverage. There have also been reports of the company adding Carmelo Anthony to its coverage as a studio analyst. Subsequent reporting has stated interest from NBC Sports in Dwyane Wade, Grant Hill and Terry Gannon to join the broadcast property as well, although the company has not confirmed any additional transactions at this time.
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