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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 Anderson Announces Retirement from SportsCenter on ESPN

“I don’t really know what’s quite next, I have some things in the fire. But SportsCenter will not be it.”

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Photo of John Anderson
Credit: Mediaite

Longtime SportsCenter anchor John Anderson has announced that when his contract comes up at the end of June, he will no longer be doing SportsCenter for ESPN. Anderson, who joined ESPN in 1999 does plan to continue covering certain events, but after 25 years he believes it is time to stop doing ESPN’s flagship show. Anderson spoke on his podcast, The Inside Wisconsin Show and prior to the episode’s release tomorrow, a clip was released:

“My contract runs out at ESPN at the end of June,” Anderson said. “I have decided that that will be the end. I’m going to leave the company. I’m going to sort of retire from ‘SportsCenter.’ I’m going to get to do a few track-and-field things, I’m going to get to continue to do the Boston Marathon and the New York Marathon – which I love – and some NCAA track meets and some SEC stuff.

“I am incredibly excited about that. It’s been a good run…I feel like it’s been a good run. The operation has changed. I don’t know that it’s passed me by, but it’s taken its toll and I still want to be able to do the best shows that I can, and I don’t know that if in years 26 or 27 I have the stamina to do it again.  

“So, I’m done…I don’t really know what’s quite next. I have some things in the fire. But SportsCenter will not be it.”

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Chris ‘Mad Dog’ Russo: NFL Streaming Games ‘Gets Obscene’

“They’ve got a Wild Card game on Amazon Prime Video, which means you can’t switch with the remotes.”

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Christopher "Mad Dog" Russo
Courtesy: Cindy Ord, Getty Images for SiriusXM

The National Football League has announced that the Philadelphia Eagles opening matchup taking place from San Paolo, Brazil against an opponent to be determined for the 2024 season will stream exclusively on Peacock. Even though the game will be exclusive to Peacock – thus requiring fans to subscribe in order to watch – it will also be broadcast on an over-the-air network in the local markets of the teams involved in the game. Christopher ‘Mad Dog’ Russo is not a fan of this decision by the league.

During his “What Are You Mad About?” segment on Wednesday morning’s edition of First Take on ESPN, Russo expressed his indignation towards the game being exclusively streamed by Peacock. Within his discourse, he presented a hypothetical scenario of an Eagles fan who continues to spend money to see the team at Lincoln Financial Field and how they would not fly down to Brazil to see the game. Russo continued by saying that the fan would then miss the game without having Peacock so the NFL is able to drive more revenue.

“It’s hard to get Peacock; I don’t want to get Peacock, alright?,” Russo said. “I want to watch the game normal. Give me [Joe] Buck and [Troy] Aikman, give me the CBS crew, [Tom] Brady’s going to do it. Give me something! Don’t put the Eagles 9,000 miles away and then put them on a cable thing on Peacock which you’ve got to subscribe to so NBC can make more money.”

NBC Sports will broadcast an opening night game during Week 1 on Thursday, Sept. 5, along with a Sunday Night Football contest on Sunday, Sept. 8. Within its stretch of primetime football matchups, which also includes a Saturday night Big Ten Conference game, the Friday night NFL game seems to be the only one exclusive to Peacock. The streaming platform is coming off a strong performance for its exclusive Wild Card round playoff matchup, drawing an average of 23 million viewers and becoming the most-streamed NFL game in history.

This past season of Thursday Night Football on Amazon Prime Video garnered a 24% increase in viewers compared to its first season, according to data from Nielsen Media Research. These metrics demonstrate that the broadcast property averaged 11.86 million viewers per game during the 2023 NFL season. The OTT streaming platform also presented the inaugural NFL game on Black Friday, which averaged 9.61 million viewers.

Prime Video will reportedly have the exclusive rights to an NFL playoff game next season, and it has continued building out its sports content vertical. The company has reportedly been exploring a potential media rights deal with the National Basketball Association as its national television contract is nearing expiration. The Walt Disney Company and Warner Bros. Discovery are currently in the midst of exclusive negotiating windows with the NBA that conclude on Monday, April 22, after which Amazon will be able to bid.

“They’ve got a Wild Card game on Amazon Prime Video, which means you can’t switch with the remotes,” Russo said, referring to the reported agreement for next season. “I know the NFL prints money – I understand how big they are, but boy this gets obscene.”

“One-hundred percent right,” First Take host Molly Qerim added. “I cannot stand having 8,000 different apps. It needs to be streamlined. It’s annoying – you have to remember all these passwords. I don’t have Peacock; I don’t want Peacock. I completely agree with you.”

ESPN NBA analyst Tim Legler proceeded to convey the dedication of Eagles fans in showing up to the stadium and watching their team. Russo agreed with him that Eagles fans will travel down to Brazil since they pack stadiums and fervently support their team. Off of that point, ESPN NFL reporter Kimberley A. Martin explained that she believes the devotion and zeal from the fanbase is part of the reason why this is a shrewd decision by the NFL.

“This is genius,” Martin said. “You do put the Eagles – that type of team – because they’re going to buy it.”

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NCAA Women’s Championship Round 2 on ESPN Up 121%; Iowa-West Virginia Hits 4.9 Million Viewers

ESPN and ABC posted their four most-watched Women’s March Madness second-round games ever, with Iowa/West Virginia averaging 4.9 million viewers

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Graphic of the NCAA Women's basketball tournament

The women’s college basketball hot streak continues with the second round of the NCAA Women’s Championship on ESPN averaging 1.4 million viewers all weekend. Viewership was at its highest for Caitlin Clark’s final game in Iowa when her Iowa Hawkeyes defeated West Virginia, which amassed a staggering 4.9 million viewers and peaked at 6.4 million.

ESPN and ABC achieved their four-most watched second-round games on record this season. Outside of Iowa/WVU, the matchup between UConn and Stanford averaged 2.1 million viewers, the LSU/Middle Tennessee matchup garnered 2 million viewers, and the Kansas/USC tilt averaged 1.8 million viewers. This matches its first-round coverage, which also set marks for its most-viewed games ever.

According to ESPN’s VP of research Flora Kelly, Iowa/WVU’s 4.9 million viewers would have beaten every Women’s National Championship game from 2005 to 2022:

ESPN is no doubt excited for a potential Elite 8 matchup between Iowa and LSU, a rematch of last year’s national championship game. That game averaged 9.9 million viewers, shattering the previous record for a women’s college basketball game on any network. All it needs is an Iowa win over Colorado and an LSU win over UCLA to make their dream a reality. A potential Iowa/South Carolina national title game could surpass even that.

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