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Mark Jackson Already Has One Of The NBA’s Best Jobs

Andy Masur
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Why would he ever go back? Why would he want to leave a good job in television to get back on the sidelines? Those were the questions facing Mark Jackson as he was a finalist for an NBA head coaching job again. Jackson interviewed for both the Lakers’ and Kings’ vacancies in the last few weeks as he looked to get back into the coaching ranks. 

Following his playing days, Jackson got involved in television, then left the media gig for the head coaching spot with the Warriors. Jackson coached at Golden State for three seasons winning 12 more games than he lost. He led the Warriors to the postseason twice, but after losing a Game 7 first round playoff game in 2014, he was fired and headed back to television. 

He is currently an ABC/ESPN analyst working on the top broadcast team with Mike Breen and Jeff Van Gundy. Jackson is at the top of his game, carving out a great niche for himself alongside Van Gundy. The two make a terrific pair, playing off each other extremely well, with the traffic cop being Breen. There is a chemistry between the three that’s pretty much evident in every broadcast. There is a unique bond between the two analysts as well. 

As I wrote about a year ago, the banter and comradery between them go back to when all three were with the Knicks. Because of their familiarity, the disagreements at times could sound heated on the air. But what you have to understand is that friends can take these liberties with each other and know exactly where that line is, and never cross it. In other words, Jackson is in a good spot and working with good friends. It seems to be a great situation for him, but the coaching bug hasn’t left his system.

Jackson’s time in Golden State was not without its bumps in the road. There are many who feel like the fallout from his first, and so far, only head coaching job, is keeping him from the next opportunity. There was a perception that Jackson couldn’t get along with anyone in the Warriors front office. Some felt like he pushed his religion on his players as well. Whatever the case, he hasn’t gotten another chance since. 

Which brings me back to the question. Why leave the relatively low stress life as a top analyst for the grind and high-stress that goes along with a head coaching position? A couple of years ago, before an NBA Finals broadcast, the question was posed to Jackson about whether he’d like to return to the sidelines. He appeared on Club Shay Shay with Shannon Sharpe. 

“Well, obviously it’s an incredible job we have and we’re blessed and fortunate to be able to call another NBA Finals,” he said. “I think coaching is in both of our veins (he and Jeff Van Gundy), and we look forward to the day — I know I can speak for myself and say I look forward to the day that I’m coaching again, but I’m having a blast.”

During that interview in September of 2021, he was asked why he currently didn’t have a head coaching job in the NBA.  

”I don’t know. That’s the full answer I do not know. What I will say is that I look forward to the day that I am coaching again. It will happen, I truly believe that with everything in me.” 

Once it’s in the blood, I guess it’s always there, right? What else could explain it? I get it, but still, why? Is it the challenge? Is it a respect thing? It could be all of the above. But there’s another side to it. 

Of all the former players, coaches and managers I’ve ever worked with, they’ve all said pretty much the same thing. Something along the lines of, “wow, it’s great to put down the headset at the end of a game and just go home.” No hours of breaking down what went right or wrong in that particular game, no time figuring out tomorrow’s lineup, no worrying about that 0-for-15 slump, no watching hours of tape trying to game plan for those next hoops opponents.

It’s freeing to be in the booth. That’s the impression that I get.

All former players or coaches have to do in their role is rely on previous experience to describe what is happening. They aren’t responsible for wins or losses. They don’t have to worry about correcting players’ mistakes. As an analyst, you can try and predict a move, and not be responsible if it doesn’t work. You have no skin in that game. Analysts get paid a lot of money to second guess, not to be second guessed. Seems like an ideal situation, doesn’t it?

What could still be the lure? I’m sure in Jackson’s mind there is no way to compete with his desires to be back as a head coach in the NBA. He probably wants to prove that he can coach again, to show either that he’s learned from that first experience or that the common perception of his first experience is not accurate.

Well, he is great on TV. The partnership with Van Gundy and Breen works. There’s safety for himself in this current job. He’s guaranteed a trip to the NBA Finals every season. Isn’t that more appealing than coaching a team in need of a reboot? 

Ian Eagle Explains How He Learned About Steve Kerr’s Covid Diagnosis

BSM Staff
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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.”

Elizabeth Warren Pushes Back that Dems are “Flatfooted” on Abortion

BNM Staff
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Abortion is a hot topic on cable news shows. Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren joined “CNN Newsroom” with Erica Hill to discuss the leaked Supreme Court draft opinion that will purportedly overturn Roe v. Wade.

According to Mediate, Hill asked Warren why the Democrats looked “flatfooted” on the issue of abortion. Warren has been in front of the cameras on abortion since the leak became public.

“I have been raising this argument for a very long time,” said Warren. “And the reason is because I lived in an America where abortion was illegal. I lived in an America where women died, bled to death because of back-alley abortions.”

Warren said an “extremist minority on the Supreme Court” believes they can dictate what’s best for American women and their bodies.

“And understand this, they don’t get the final word. The final word rests in Congress. So, I think this is a galvanizing moment.”

“I think this is a moment we have this vote today to get everybody on record, and then, we hold everybody accountable for those votes,” Warren added. 

Ethan Sherwood Strauss Says ESPN Killed Unflattering Mark Jackson Story In 2016

BSM Staff
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Ethan Sherwood Strauss Says ESPN Killed Unflattering Mark Jackson Story In 2016

A story written for ESPN: The Magazine in 2016 was killed because it made former Warriors coach and current ABC analyst Mark Jackson look bad. That is an accusation Ethan Sherwood Strauss, who covered the NBA for ESPN at the time, is making in his latest Substack newsletter.

Strauss notes he was not the writer of the piece. He declined to name who was.

The purpose of the story was to examine how the Golden State Warriors had turned into a championship team under Steve Kerr. Part of the background of the story involved laying out what the team had become under Mark Jackson, who was fired in 2014. Strauss describes that information as “incendiary” and the reason the story did not see the light of day.

In his latest newsletter, Strauss writes that some of the information in that piece is what has caused Jackson to be passed over for coaching opportunities in the past. Most recently, he lost out on the Sacramento Kings’ coaching job to Mike Brown.

“The reasons for Mark Jackson’s drought are hidden, in part, because he’s an announcer,” Strauss writes. “If he ever gets what he wants and leaves that position, we’ll see more on why the object of his pursuit was kept from him. Teams know. They’ve done the work to find out what Jackson’s current employer has tried to keep quiet.”

Among the allegations in the 2016 article were that he called asisstant coach Jason Collins and team president Rick Welts, both openly gay, “penis touchers” and would remark that they were “going to hell.” Jackson also reportedly accused team employees of “being influenced by the devil” and regularly tried to pit the locker room against the front office.

While these specific allegations have never been made public, they are in line with past allegations against Jackson, particularly the homophobia. Warriors co-owner Joe Lacob said after Jackson was fired from the team that the coach “couldn’t get along with anybody else in the organization”.

It is reasonable to assume as an employee covering the NBA for ESPN at the time that Ethan Sherwood Strauss would have been aware of the story and it never seeing the light of day. Still, he does not have any first-hand accounts of ESPN’s decision or what was in the story on the record.

Dan Patrick: ‘I Want Buccaneer Tom, Not Patriot Tom On Fox’

BSM Staff
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A lot of people have compared the deal FOX signed with Tom Brady to the one NBC signed with Drew Brees before the former Saints quarterback finished his playing days. FOX is set to pay Brady $375 million for his services. That means the network better be right about their faith in the quarterback.

Drew Brees faced a lot of criticism this year. Some have speculated that the reason he is not joining Mike Tirico in the Sunday Night Football booth this season is that he is too boring to be the network’s league analyst.

Dan Patrick says he has a similar concern about Tom Brady. Landing the greatest quarterback of all time is a win for FOX, but we have seen two very different Tom Bradys in his career. If the wrong one shows up, Patrick says this investment could be a disaster for FOX.

“I worry sometimes that if we get ‘Patriot Tom’ instead of ‘Buccaneer Tom,’” Dan Patrick said on his Wednesday show. “‘Buccaneer Tom’ is ‘Vacation Tom.’ That guy’s having a good time. ‘Two-Drink Tommy;’ that I like. But if he does the Patriot Way, that’s not going to be good.”

As he has gotten older, Tom Brady has been more willing to show off his personality. Most famously, he cut loose at the boat parade celebrating the Tampa’s Super Bowl title in 2021.

Dan Patrick wondered if Tom Brady would be aware of the standard for succes in broadcasting. Would he know that entertainment matters? He pointed out that Brady’s social media accounts tend to be pretty funny, but they are likely either manned or at least aided by staff writers.

“Just because you can do it, doesn’t mean you can tell us how to do it, and I think that is gonna be the interesting part,” Patrick said.

Travis Rodgers: ‘Celebrities At SoFi Stadium Make Rams A Better Primetime Fit For NFL’

BSM Staff
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Tuesday on 710 ESPN Radio Los Angeles, Travis and Sliwa discussed how the NFL is consistently able to fabricate non-game events into must-follow action, generating ratings and revenue during the nearly seven-month long offseason. The special promoting the release of the full 2022 season schedule is on Thusday night is a good example..

“I’m sure we’re going to be 10 weeks into the NFL season [and say], ‘Man, that team didn’t turn out the way we thought it would,’ [or] ‘Oh, that team is better than we thought it’s going to be,’” said show co-host Allen Sliwa. “That’s what kind of makes this part of the year sort of exciting – that you start finding out what the matchups are.”

Nonetheless, the NFL has been able to captivate fans through making a spectacle of offseason events. This includes the impending primetime television schedule release special by the league, rather than simply divulging the week-by-week matchups with minimal grandeur and melodrama.

“They’re so good at turning things that aren’t games into things,” said show co-host Travis Rodgers. “The draft is a huge thing; the combine is a thing; the schedule release is a thing; free agency is a thing; training camps are a thing.”

While the NFL schedule may not yet be fully released, some primetime matchups have been announced in advance, potentially to pique the interest of fans, media partners and the players themselves. It is safe to say that the defending Super Bowl Champion Los Angeles Rams will receive much of the primetime action across the NFL’s remodeled slate of broadcasts during the 2022 season. In fact, it was recently announced that the Rams will be playing on Christmas Day against Russell Wilson and the Denver Broncos on a game simulcast on CBS and Paramount+, along with the inclusion of a special viewing presentation on Nickelodeon sure to include the network’s signature slime.

Aside from the team’s success on the field though, there exist other reasons why the current moment is an opportune time to schedule the Rams to play games in primetime.

“I’m telling you – the Rams are really good,” said Rodgers. “They play in a place that’s got great visuals. There’s going to be celebrities in the stands. A brand new stadium. Everybody likes coming to L.A. This is the place you’re going to have people come over and over.”

It was not always guaranteed that the NFL would be willing to return to the City of Angels, and if the league would be welcomed back. Yet since the construction of the $5.5 billion-SoFi Stadium complete with NFL Network studios within new league headquarters combined with the early success of both the Rams and Los Angeles Chargers, the reincarnation of football in southern California has been largely prosperous thus far.

“It’s almost like icing on the cake,” said Sliwa. “The NFL is the NFL either way. But the brand the Rams have created over a short period of time, and… the visuals. You go to a game and it’s, ‘Wow, there’s LeBron; there’s DiCaprio; there’s this.’ Damn, what more can you ask for from this franchise?”

Cris Collinsworth Wonders If Tom Brady Knows Broadcasting Is a Hard Job

BSM Staff
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Many in the sports media industry were surprised by the news that Tom Brady will join FOX Sports as the lead NFL analyst when he eventually decides to end his playing career. That includes the current lead analyst of NBC’s Sunday Night Football telecasts, Cris Collinsworth. 

“I’m a little surprised,” he said on the latest episode of The Cris Collinsworth Podcast. “There’s no amount of money they could throw at him that would have influenced him. He’s going to still be working weekends for half the year no matter what it is.” 

Collinsworth mentioned that he hears from most people and they ask him what the TV life is like when they are thinking about getting into the industry. Tom Brady was not one of those people. He hopes the GOAT knows what he is in for.

“It’s hard. I’m working on the airplane when I’m flying home from the other game. I’m working on the next game. It’s a seven day a week job. For somebody that has reached where he’s reached in the NFL and made that kind of money, I’m honestly really surprised. I guess the money now has gotten to the point where it’s of interest to everybody.” 

While some might be unsure about how Brady will do in the FOX NFL booth with Kevin Burkhardt, count Collinsworth in as one of those people who think Brady will do a great job.

“I think he’ll be fantastic. Every conversation I have ever had with him about the game of football, you always go oh, I didn’t know. He’s always been pretty open and honest with us. He has a real personal side to the game…He’s got it all, but I’ve got to say I am surprised.”

Tom Millikan Upped To APD of 97.1 The Ticket

BSM Staff
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Tom Millikan Upped To APD of 97.1 The Ticket

Congratulations are in order for Tom Millikan. The executive producer of The Morning Show with Stoney and Jansen has been promoted to assistant program director of 97.1 The Ticket in Detroit.

“Tom has done an outstanding job as an executive producer and has played a vital role in the success of the station,” said Debbie Kenyon, Senior Vice President and Market Manager, Audacy Detroit. “He is very deserving of this promotion and we look forward to even greater success with Tom in his new role.”

Millikan has been a steady presence in Detroit sports talk since 1998. He has been with The Ticket since 2012. In that time, he has served as an affiliate relations manager for coverage of the Detroit Tigers, Lions, Red Wings and Pistons. He has also been involved with Michigan Wolverines broadcasts on sister station WWJ AM.

“Throughout my twenty plus years in radio, I’ve been blessed with countless memories of championships and pure joy,” said Millikan. “I’m living out a dream. I wanted to work in sports radio since the format exploded in the early 90s and I’ve been blessed by the tutelage of all of my co-workers and peers. I was born and raised in Detroit and Detroit sports are part of my DNA. Listeners might not agree with my opinions or show content all of the time, but I genuinely try to produce shows that Detroit sports fans want every single day.”

Paul Bissonnette: ‘Wayne Gretzky’s Kids Helped Me Land TNT Gig’

BSM Staff
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If you’re going to party, party with the right people. That is a lesson that has served Paul Bissonnette well. He told Pat McAfee that it lead directly to a relationship with Wayne Gretzky and to a job on TNT’s NHL studio show.

Before he broke through as the host of Barstool’s Spittin’ Chiclets podcasts, Bissonnette played six seasons in the NHL. Most of that time was spent with the Arizona Coyotes. He got to the team a year after Wayne Gretzky was the coach.

Even after he was fired, Gretzky kept his home in the Phoenix area. His sons Ty and Trevor lived there with another friend while they attended Arizona State University. Bissonnette described the home as a mansion and said he attended a lot of parties there.

“Let’s put it this way, I was batting 1.000 at this place,” he told McAfee. “The girls were like everywhere.”

Partying with the Gretzky sons opened the door to gaining Wayne’s trust. Paul Bissonnette said that Ty and Trevor reached out to their dad shortly after they heard that he was going to part of TNT’s NHL plans.

“That was an easier transition to meeting him because they actually vouched for me and told him, when he got the TNT gig, ‘Hey, you’ve gotta get Biz on. He does Spittin’ Chiclets. I think it would help the broadcast.’ Wayne ended up putting in a good word and then it all worked out.”

Co-host AJ Hawk asked Bissonnette what it was like to now be friends with someone that was an icon to him in his youth. Bissonnette described Wayne Gretzky as a “guy’s guy” and said he values time spent in The Great One’s dressing room drinking beer and telling stories.

“Buddy, it’s a dream come true, and that alone is incentive enough for me to fly out here once a week or twice a week and do this gig.”

The interview was a lot of fun and ended with Paul Bissonnette acknowledging that there are two unsung heroes of his personal and professional lives.

“I really gotta thank his kids Ty and Trevor for the introduction and for helping me get laid.”

Joe Rogan Tops Top 50 Podcast Chart for the First Quarter of 2022

BNM Staff
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The podcasting industry is one way many consume news media, and one way its ratings are measured is through the Edison Research, which announced the Top 50 Podcast chart for the first quarter of 2022.

When it comes to the number one podcast on the list for these measures, it’s Joe Rogan’s “The Joe Rogan Experience,” which holds onto its top spot, per Radio Ink. Other news media podcasts that are in the top ten include The New York Times’ “The Daily,” “NBC Dateline,” and “The Ben Shapiro Show.”

Here are the entire top 10 shows for Q1:

1. The Joe Rogan Experience

2. Crime Junkie (up from #3 in Q4 2021)

3. The Daily

4. This American Life

5. My Favorite Murder (up from #6 in Q4 2021)

6. Stuff You Should Know

7. Office Ladies

8. Dateline NBC (enters the Top 10)

9. The Ben Shapiro Show (enters the Top 10)

10. Call Her Daddy

The list rates the 50 biggest podcasts by audience measure based on Edison Podcast Metrics, which calculates the comparable audience size and demographics of all podcast networks in the U.S.

Furthermore, these measures are founded on substantial podcast listening, not downloads, and do not need an opt-in from podcast networks.

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