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Jeff Van Gundy: ‘NBA Games Should Be Shortened To 2 Hour TV Window’

“He suggests modifying rules, such as the length of halftime and instituting a statute of limitations on challenges, to ensure the game remains enthralling and entertaining for future generations.”

Derek Futterman

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ESPN enters its 20th season of NBA coverage with cross-platform coverage leading up to a prime-time matchup from Madison Square Garden with Jayson Tatum and the Boston Celtics visiting Julius Randle and the New York Knicks. ESPN Play-by-Play Announcer and “voice of the NBA Finals” Mike Breen will be on the call, joined by sideline reporter Lisa Salters and analysts Mark Jackson and Jeff Van Gundy. Jackson, who most recently served as head coach of the Golden State Warriors after a 17-year playing career, looked back on how far the broadcast has come since he first joined it in 2006.

“It [has] progressed with the variety of people [who] are covering the game,” said Jackson on a recent conference call. “Across the board, they’ve done an outstanding job of not making us all look and sound alike. I’m honored to be a part of that group.”

An issue prevalent in many sports, most notably Major League Baseball, pertains to pace-of-play. In an attempt to shorten “America’s Pastime” to attract and hold the attention of younger audiences, the introduction of new rules, such as limitations on mound visits, clocks to regulate time in-between innings, and restrictions on when the batter can step out of the box during an at-bat, have had the adverse effect. The average MLB contest lasts three hours and 11 minutes, the highest mark recorded since consistent measurement began in 1946.

While a regulation, four-quarter NBA game is significantly quicker than an MLB contest, Van Gundy, a former coach of 11 years, hopes the league can shorten the game even more to adapt to today’s viewing audience that holds an average attention span of just eight seconds, shorter than that of a goldfish. He suggests modifying rules, such as the length of halftime and instituting a statute of limitations on challenges, to ensure the game remains enthralling and entertaining for future generations.

“I’d love to see the game shortened into a two-hour window,” said Van Gundy. “I think we need to keep finding ways to reduce stoppages of play from timeouts. I would either shorten or greatly modify halftime. I think [the league has] to constantly look for ways to shorten the viewing window and have as much action in that two-hour timeframe as [it] can.”

With ESPN recently launching the “Manningcast,” an alternate, non-traditional broadcast of Monday Night Football featuring former NFL quarterbacks, Super Bowl champions and brothers Eli and Peyton Manning, the world of sports media has undoubtedly taken notice. The broadcast has a similar feel to friends hanging out and watching a football game, except these friends just so happen to have played and reached the pinnacle of professional football, offering unique perspectives and viewpoints shattering the fourth wall between the athletes and the fans. While the NBA on ESPN has yet to do a broadcast at that scale with regularity, it is something that the network analysts are taking notice of.

“When you’re dealing with one of the greatest to ever play the game in Peyton, and a hall-of-famer in Eli, both guys do an incredible job,” said Jackson. “I think it gives an opportunity for viewers who want to see that type of broadcast. I don’t even know how many channels [ESPN has, but] it’s always going to be something against what we are doing… I have no problem with it at all.”

If ESPN decided to produce a non-traditional, alternate broadcast, Van Gundy offered an idea to close out his broadcasting career where the fans would be given the unfiltered perspective of those who have been on the court.

“I want to do one game, NBA on ESPN: The Entire Truth,” opined Van Gundy. “[We would] be able to tell the entire truth — not 90% of it, not 80% of it, but the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. I think that would be an outstanding, one-time broadcast as I sign off and finish my career.”

While Jackson and Van Gundy do not cover the NFL, they have not had their heads in the sand. They were asked about the emails from Jon Gruden leaked during an investigation into the culture of the Washington Football Team. Both hold concerns regarding similar issues that may have already occurred or could occur in the future within the NBA, a league that protested racial injustice last summer when playoff games were postponed and nearly cancelled following the shooting of Jacob Blake.

“It’s unfortunate, and I totally agree with the price that Jon Gruden had to pay for the things that he stated,” said Jackson. “My concern is I truly do not believe it is just a Jon Gruden story. There’s more to it, and there’s people being protected. We have to find a way to weave those people out… [and] hopefully we can get better across the board.”

Van Gundy holds an analogous sentiment with Jackson, and has lost trust in the NFL’s stand against injustice and willingness to do whatever it takes to directly avoid bad publicity

“The NFL has always found ways to protect itself from these things, and to deflect their responsibility,” affirmed Van Gundy. “They’ll give you a lot of clichés about transparency; yet, they are always covering and protecting their own. My level of trust for their investigations is nil.”

Aside from the trio of Breen, Jackson and Van Gundy, ESPN’s lineup of on-air personalities and commentators, the latter of whom all plan to appear on-site this season, includes analysts Doris Burke, Richard Jefferson and Vince Carter and play-by-play voices Ryan Ruocco, Mark Jones, Dave Pasch, Brian Custer and Beth Mowins. Additionally, sideline reporters for this season of the N.B.A. on ESPN include Malika Andrews, Katie George, Rosalyn Gold-Onwude, Cassidy Hubbarth, Lisa Salters and Jorge Sedano. One name, though, that has been within the N.B.A. landscape longer than any of ESPN’s rotation of broadcasters is Naismith Basketball Hall-of-Famer Hubie Brown, who starts his 50th season in the league between coaching and broadcasting.

Jeff Van Gundy, who ESPN recently inked to a multi-year contract extension, does not think his career will have the longevity of Brown’s, but is grateful for the time he has spent with the network thus far, and looks forward to the future of what he calls his “second career.”

“There has to be an award named for [Hubie Brown] somewhere. He’s 88 — that would take me to 2050. I can’t even imagine that,” said Van Gundy. “The upper management of ESPN has changed a lot, but my direct boss in Tim Corrigan has never changed. Broadcasting is good, but broadcasting with friends is great…  I’ve enjoyed it particularly because of who I work for and who I work with. I can’t state how lucky I’ve been along the way to have coached as long as I did and to stumble into a second career.”

ESPN’s 20th season of NBA coverage kicks off Wednesday night with the prime-time matchup between the Boston Celtics and the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden in New York.

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John Skipper ‘Expects’ NBA To Have More Than 2 Partners in New TV Deal

“They’re gonna end up with more partners than they have now…with somewhere between two or three times the money they have now.”

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Former ESPN President and current Meadowlark Media CEO John Skipper thinks the NBA will go the NFL route and have more than two broadcast partners for their upcoming media rights deal.

During an episode of the Sporting Class podcast, John Skipper and cohorts David Samson and Pablo Torre discussed the upcoming NBA media rights deal, under the guise of Dallas Mavericks governor Mark Cuban selling the team, and how it could play out for teams moving forward. When it came to the total valuation of the NBA’s upcoming rights deal, Skipper was bullish on the NBA’s future.

“They’re gonna end up with more partners than they have now,” Skipper said, “they’re gonna end up with, in my opinion, with somewhere between two or three times the money they have now,” before host Pablo Torre added some additional color, stating “Because of broadcast partners in television and also the tech companies.”

The NBA has famously featured one or two broadcast partners for most of its lifespan. CBS held NBA broadcasting rights from the mid-70s until the 1989-90 season, then lost the rights to NBC from 1990 until 2002, with interspersing of cable broadcast holders like USA Network, ESPN, and Turner between there.

In 2002, the NBA shifted to a more rigid version of its two-partner system, where ABC and ESPN would split games with Turner Broadcasting. The league extended its agreement with both networks multiple times, which will finally come to a head in 2024.

For the first time, the NBA could look to expand across multiple channels, similar to how the NFL handles business, where multiple broadcast partners will air games on either certain days of the week or certain holidays. While Turner could be planning for life without the NBA, both Amazon and NBC are planning an aggressive pursuit of NBA rights during the next media rights negotiation.

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Kirk Herbstreit: Pat McAfee Has ‘Changed My Experience’ on College GameDay

“You’ve changed the approach, the energy, not just on this set, but like the week. I’m having a blast.”

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Kirk Herbstreit and Pat McAfee

While many detractors say otherwise, Kirk Herbstreit is crediting Pat McAfee for positive changes in the way he and the team approach College GameDay.

During an appearance on The Pat McAfee Show, McAfee jokingly discussed leaving College GameDay due to “mean” college football fans ruining his fun and positive life. “I don’t want the negativity in my life, I don’t want the death threats,” McAfee said. Herbstreit, however, had no time for McAfee and threw the gauntlet down. “If you dare even think about leaving College GameDay,” Herbstreit said, “I’m leaving with you.” McAfee then responded with the famous line from Talladega Nights — “don’t you put that on me!”

Within the jest, however, Herbstreit lets us peek back behind the curtain to how he and the rest of the College GameDay team feel about McAfee. “You’ve changed my experience,” Herbstreit said. “You’ve changed the approach, the energy, not just on this set, but like the week. I’m having a blast…It’s like being on a team where you have a great energy. If you dare leave…” Fortunately, by the end of the segment, McAfee was back on board and admitted this would be his life for the foreseeable future.

Some pundits have felt that McAfee’s appearance on GameDay hasn’t helped grow the program, despite them confirming Herbstreit’s remarks on McAfee’s personality. Former ESPNer Dan Le Batard said on his show, “He is effusive, he is such a positive person. He is effusive in his praise for the people on that set. But now the numbers are coming back, and this is something that McAfee couldn’t have expected.”

While the ratings numbers for GameDay are higher than they’ve ever been (something Herbstreit and McAfee made sure to mention in their discussion,) they’re still under attack from FOX’s Big Noon Kickoff, who have scored some major ratings wins over this past season. According to FOX, before the Nov. 25 game between Ohio State and Michigan, Big Noon Kickoff averaged 2.34 million viewers and hit a record 4.36 million viewers from 11 a.m. ET until kickoff. This made Big Noon Kickoff the most-watched college football pregame show on television for the weekend. The recent losses have some feeling like College GameDay has lost its way.

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Al Michaels Questions If Bill Belichick Has TV Future

“Does he go into television? How about this? They put him in the booth with Kevin Burkhardt and Tom Brady next year on FOX.”

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Amidst a dismal season for the New England Patriots, one legendary sports broadcaster thinks Bill Belichick could leave coaching to join him in the world of announcing.

During last night’s Thursday Night Football broadcast between the New England Patriots and Pittsburgh Steelers, Al Michaels made a passing comment about Belichick’s status as Pats head coach moving forward — but it could have massive reverberations throughout two industries.

“Does he go into television?” Michaels said while speculating Belichick’s future with co-host Kirk Herbstreit. “How crazy that sounds, but he won an Emmy [for NFL Network’s NFL 100 All-Time Team series] with Cris Collinsworth and Rich Eisen. How about this? If he goes into television, they put him in the booth with Kevin Burkhardt and Tom Brady next year on FOX.”

Belichick and Brady teaming up once more doesn’t seem too far-fetched, especially considering their past successes together. Former Patriots wide receiver Julian Edelman and tight end Rob Gronkowski also prowl FOX’s airwaves, which could allow the former Patriots to dominate sports media in a way not seen since ’80s and ’90s-era Dallas Cowboys did in years past.

Unlike Brady, who is a relative newcomer to sports broadcasting, Belichick has precedent with sports TV in the past. Outside of the NFL’s Top 100 All-Time Team. Belichick served as a guest analyst for ABC’s Super Bowl XL pre-game show breaking down the action between the Steelers and the Seattle Seahawks. Belichick was praised for his work on that broadcast, despite his prior reputation as a bit of a grump. Belichick also featured heavily and was likewise praised for his appearance in ESPN’s The Two Bills, a 30 for 30 starring Belichick and Bill Parcells.

What could the future hold for Belichick? As Herbstreit says during the broadcast, “The only guy who knows is Bill Belichick.”

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