BSM Writers
Brian Anderson Is A Repeated Witness to History
When you speak with people around the game of baseball and ask them what the most important position on the field is, many of their answers would be the catcher. Not only does the backstop frame pitches, but it also helps enforce defensive shifts, call pitch sequences and hold runners on the basepaths. Brian Anderson always dreamed of playing in the major leagues and was the backup catcher for two years on the nationally-ranked St. Mary’s University Rattlers.
This weekend, he will call the NBA All-Star Game for the first time in his career, acting in essence as a catcher: a leader guiding the broadcast and captioning the images of the annual event.
About two years into his time as an undergraduate student, Anderson realized playing professional baseball was no longer a realistic goal and had an important decision to make about his future. He had received an offer from the Cincinnati Reds to be trained as a scout; however, that path would require he attend scouting school and likely travel around the country. Brian’s brother, Mike, had been discovered by the team’s scouting supervisor Chuck LaMar at an open tryout, and was subsequently signed by the team.
As Mike Anderson trudged through the minor leagues in his quest to pitch in “the show,” Brian would visit his brother and converse with the broadcasters, spending time with them and observing their habits on their shows in the booth. Moreover, Brian’s college team leased their field to the San Antonio Missions, a then-minor league affiliate of the Los Angeles Dodgers, and through their conversations, was encouraged by the team’s broadcasters to give sports media a try.
“I wouldn’t say I stumbled into it because I was purposeful on what I wanted to try to pursue, but I didn’t know; I didn’t really have any formal training,” Anderson said. “I was an English major in college, so I had to kind of start really from scratch to build a broadcasting career.”
Through his time in college, Anderson worked on the technical side of the industry, operating cameras, monitoring audio and building graphics, but he was exposed to a whole new side of the industry as the voice of the Missions.
As its radio play-by-play announcer, he was broadcasting 140 games a year and traveling with the team, requiring him to acclimate to life on the road with aspiring professional athletes. It also became imperative to monitor his voice and care for it to ensure he would be able to endure the continuous, unimpeded nature of baseball.
Aside from baseball, Anderson was gaining play-by-play experience elsewhere as a high school football and college basketball announcer, giving him consistent opportunities across all four seasons to be behind the mic. These repetitions and concomitant development of versatility helped shape his future in sports media, always accepting new assignments and adapting as necessary all through internal motivation and feedback.
“You start to treat your broadcasting like a golf swing, really, and not take it too personal and try to fix your slice and your hook and all your swing flaws,” Anderson said. “I just approached it like an athlete, basically.”
Beginning in 1999, Anderson worked as the sideline reporter for the San Antonio Spurs on FSN Southwest as part of a deal that would allow him to also call additional college basketball games. He was part of the media contingent during head coach Greg Popovich’s early years as head coach of the team, and witnessed the preparation and all-star play of David Robinson, Tony Parker and Tim Duncan – coalescing in the form of three championships.
Broadcasting from the Alamodome, he improved on his skills as a journalist, which continue to enhance his play-by-play announcing – a role towards which he was never solely fixated over his formative industry years.
“I know how hard the job is; I know how important the job is,” Anderson said. “You may not say a word for 10 minutes or 15 minutes of real time, but then when you do, you have a small amount of time to communicate quickly and effectively.”
Over this time, Anderson continued broadcasting Minor League Baseball games for the San Antonio Missions, but decided to move on from baseball following the 2002 season, opting to join the Golf Channel. Just as he had recognized he would likely not make the major leagues as a player, Anderson was realistic in that he knew it was near-impossible to land an announcing job in the major leagues in the minor leagues.
For approximately 120 days a year, Anderson was appearing on television bringing viewers the latest news across the world of professional golf, refining the craft of doing opens and standups. Within that four-year stint, he immersed himself in television, working with producers and directors and amassing vast examples of his work that proved vital when an opportunity to return to baseball emerged.
Upon the departure of Daron Sutton, the Milwaukee Brewers’ television play-by-play job became available, and it was something Anderson decided to take a chance in pursuing. He had been away from the game, hardly following it but occasionally attending matchups as a fan since he had always been enamored with “America’s Pastime.”
In meeting with his broadcast agent, they compiled a demo reel of Anderson’s television opens with the Golf Channel and sideline reports with the Spurs to demonstrate his comfort and versatility in that medium. Then, they followed it up with various examples of radio calls he had made for the San Antonio Missions to display his familiarity with the game of baseball.
“It worked, and I was as surprised as anybody that I even made it to the round of 25 to start with,” Anderson said, “and then it just kept escalating from there.”
Anderson began the 2007 season with the team as its play-by-play announcer, a surprising revelation for him considering he knew of the difficulties associated with landing and remaining in a major-league broadcast job. In his first year broadcasting locally, he began to stand out in the craft, leading him to join Turner Sports to call baseball games nationally, including during its postseason coverage.
There is an obvious contrast between calling games locally and nationally; however, Anderson was able to effectively perform both roles due to his vast knowledge about the Brewers and the sport as a whole – evinced by a passion for the game and thorough preparation.
“There’s a lot more pressure; there’s a lot more viewers,” Anderson said of national broadcasts, “but at the same time, you have to concentrate mechanically on celebrating the success of both teams…. You’re parachuting in; you’re not with the team every day, so you have to do a lot more prep to prepare for a national broadcast.”
Simultaneously, Anderson also added college basketball play-by-play duties to his schedule – first with ESPN, and later with Turner Sports and CBS, which includes covering the NCAA Division I men’s basketball tournament. Additionally, he was a play-by-play announcer for Big Ten, Big East and Big 12 regular season games, following college teams and athletes in their journeys to attain their goals.
In being present at events such as “March Madness” that garner extensive mass appeal and interest, Anderson is fascinated with the storylines of the participants, some of whom may be at the peak of their careers. He does his best to supply adequate play-by-play announcing through his innate fandom, engrossing preparation and broadcast expertise.
“Most of the players that we cover on the college game and the NCAA tournament are not going to play professionally, and so this is it for them,” Anderson explained. “….We’re trying to serve the players well, and that means you have to be right there with them in the middle of their story.”
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Over his broadcast career, Anderson had not broadcast the National Basketball Association as a play-by-play announcer until he was offered a chance to enter into that area of coverage with Turner Sports in 2014.
Today, he is one of its lead national announcers, frequently calling showcase games for the NBA on TNT throughout the week on its Tuesday night doubleheaders consumed by millions of basketball fans around the world. As a media member, he has a role in facilitating interest in the league, which itself has what can seem like an endless stream of information.
“The news of the NBA is just as big off the court as it is on the court,” Anderson said. “It’s a whole brand and a whole scene. My role is to call the games, so I have a small part of that, but it all kind of fits together with how we present the games on TNT.”
There is a stark contrast between the skill level between college basketball and the NBA, with Anderson affirming the worst NBA player would be the best player on a college team. The game moves at a faster pace and possesses a deeper meaning in its contextualization of how it affects championship quests and legacies, making effective preparation integral to realize any level of sustained success.
When he dons the headset, Anderson tries to think about broadcasting to an “audience of one,” being authentic and elocuting the moment to the viewer. Unlike radio play-by-play announcers, Anderson has images and pictures to use to his advantage in accompanying his speech, which also allows his analyst to have more time to dispense their opinion into the broadcast.
Over his time with Turner Sports, some of the analysts with whom he has worked include Reggie Miller, Stan Van Gundy and Dennis Scott. Moreover, he is one of the play-by-play announcers featured in the NBA 2K video game series, popular among basketball fans, gamers and Esport competitors.
“The prep doesn’t feel like work even though it is,” Anderson said. “It just feels like an interesting rabbithole to go down, and you just try to deliver that in a timely fashion between plays to an audience. That’s really the skill and the art of this industry is to take yourself out of it… and then [determine] how best we can serve the audience and the players and these teams and the league.”
The preparation proved vital last week in Los Angeles, Calif. when Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James needed 36 points to break the NBA’s all-time scoring record. James, who entered the contest averaging 27.6 points per game, made quick work of the Oklahoma City Thunder and reached the milestone by the third quarter, giving Anderson, who was on the national television broadcast, time to crescendo into the moment everyone had been waiting for.
As an experienced play-by-play announcer at the national level, Anderson thrives in the spotlight by being himself and reacting with the crowd rather than scripting what he wants to say in advance.
“You force yourself to not let your mind go down that road and have all these lines and all these things mapped out because that’s trouble, even though you really want to write these things out so you don’t screw it up,” he said. “You just have to trust your vocabulary and trust your ability to ad-lib and trust [your ability] to translate [the action] into words quickly because that’s your job.”
It was not the first time Anderson had called a record-breaking NBA moment, as he was courtside last year from Madison Square Garden in New York City when Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry broke the NBA’s all-time record for three-point field goals made. The difference was that Curry began that game just two three-point shots away from the record, meaning that Anderson had to quickly reach a level of excitement conducive to the magnitude of the moment.
Curry ended up breaking the record less than five minutes into the game, halting play and receiving a standing ovation from New York Knicks fans, underscoring his influence on the sport and its future.
This time around though, Anderson closely monitored the points difference between then-record holder Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and James and elevated his enthusiasm as it dwindled into the single digits. There was no guarantee James would even reach the record that night, so Anderson had to be ready to pivot and primarily discuss the game at hand rather than focusing the commentary on the scoring record.
Luckily, he was prepared for either scenario – but “King James” ended up drilling a 15-foot fadeaway jump shot to shatter the record and put the uncertainty to rest.
“Ninety percent of what we do, we never use on the broadcast,” Anderson said. “That can sometimes be frustrating, but you have to be okay with leaving all that information; all that homework you did out on the floor because it didn’t quite fit. The 10% that does fit is really impactful.”
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This Sunday, Anderson will call the 72nd NBA All-Star Game from Vivint Arena in Salt Lake City, Utah, the home of the Utah Jazz, televised on TNT. He will be joined by sideline reporter Dennis Scott and analyst Reggie Miller. Candace Parker, an accomplished forward with the WNBA’s Las Vegas Aces, will also serve as an analyst and become the first woman to call an NBA All-Star Game.
In working with Turner Sports, Anderson had previously commentated the Jordan Rising Stars Game and select events on State Farm All-Star Saturday Night, including the three-point and slam dunk contests.
“It’s really important for me to just flow with my partners and what’s happening in front of us, and be able to trust myself to recognize when the moments occur and be able to latch on to those moments,” Anderson said. “That’s kind of the plan going in and just being extremely pliable.”
Parker has worked with Turner Sports since 2018 when she joined its networks to contribute to NCAA tournament coverage and became involved with NBA broadcast coverage in 2019. Anderson is excited to work with her on the broadcast, and will set her up to provide her unique perspective as an active professional athlete and further the reach of the game.
“She just gets it – that’s the only way I can say it,” Anderson said of Parker. “You tell her one thing and she’s extremely coachable; she wants to learn. She’s a sponge; she wants to learn the business and learn all the behind-the-curtain stuff with television…. I’ve never been around anybody who has picked it up that fast and thrives this quickly.”
Standout players from across the league will be on hand for the festivities, including Dallas Mavericks guard Luka Dončić, Cleveland Cavaliers guard Donovan Mitchell, Boston Celtics forward Jayson Tatum and Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokić – the question, though, will be for what team they end up competing.
The aforementioned James and Milwaukee Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo were the leading vote-getters in their respective conferences; therefore, they will serve as captains and draft their teams playground-style one hour before tipoff in the NBA All-Star Draft, presented by Jordan Brand.
“It’s going to make it fun, and it’s going to instantly create some competitive fire because you’re either getting shunned or you want to do well for the guy who picked you,” Anderson said. “….It’s going to be a challenge [for] the play-by-play announcer to get all that organized and who’s on whose team. You have to file all your notes in a different kind of way.”
Throughout the live game broadcast, the commentators will interview players, experiment with new technologies and promulgate basketball’s best talent. Last year, the game attracted 6.28 million viewers across Turner Sports’ networks (TNT/TBS), up 6% from 2021 when the game earned a 3.1 share, and aims to continue this upwards trajectory Sunday night by showcasing the personalities of the players.
It compares to Capital One’s The Match, televised exhibition golf matchups between professional golfers and other athletes, some of whom have included Tom Brady, Stephen Curry and Peyton Manning. Its first iteration was a 22-hole match between Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson with the winner donating the $9 million purse to charity. Anderson has hosted the event numerous times since its inception in 2018, referring to it as “the sweet spot of sports and entertainment” where athletes are showcased in a different light for a good cause.
“It reminds me [of] when I was a kid, watching superstars and Battle of the Network Stars and you’re taking people out of their comfort zone; you’re putting them in a different arena, but you can also learn a lot about them and have some fun with them,” Anderson said. “I’m fascinated by it; I’m really glad I get to do it.”
In high school, Anderson was a member of the basketball and football teams, and went on to play baseball in college. When he was not on the field, he was often following sports, learning about the players, teams and leagues and, in turn, broadening his knowledge and proficiency. Today, he calls baseball, basketball, football and golf, and always remains ready to take on new challenges should they be presented to him.
“I like changing and feeling a little bit uncomfortable, especially when you make the transition from one to the other,” Anderson said. “….I like the fact that I can do all sports. It takes a little bit of extra work and there’s not really an offseason.”
Although the goal of partaking in a “perfect broadcast” is impractical, he tries to reach as close to it as possible to effectively serve his viewing audience and the personnel. Furthermore, Anderson seeks to improve with every repetition on the air and act as a conduit for sports fans to engage with their favorite players and teams and follow whatever path his career takes him.
“I won’t always get it right – and I strive to get it right; every inch of it,” Anderson said. “You add all those pieces together and hopefully you end up with a really good broadcast.”
From broadcasting in the minor leagues to taking a sideline reporting job with the San Antonio Spurs; from the television play-by-play voice of the Milwaukee Brewers to a national sportscaster with Turner Sports and CBS, Brian Anderson has built a multifaceted career in sports media that continues to grow.
By having a second means of income by working production and technology jobs in sports media, he afforded himself the chances to slowly improve at broadcasting and establish himself in the industry, a process that took five years alone.
Today, he genuinely enjoys preparing for each broadcast and thinking about how he can disseminate detailed information in a compendious manner – all while exuding an avidity for the action on the hardwood. It will be on display Sunday night from Salt Lake City and for the remainder of this NBA season filled with signature moments and a maelstrom of unpredictable playoff action on the horizon.
“What we do on the air is basically the test,” Anderson said. “It’s studying for the test and preparing for the test – that’s the work [and] nobody sees that part. When nobody’s watching, how disciplined will you be?”
TNT and TBS will televise the NBA All-Star Draft, presented by Jordan Brand at 7:30 p.m. EST followed by tip-off of the 72nd NBA All-Star Game at 8:30 p.m. EST. Brian Anderson, Reggie Miller, Candace Parker and Dennis Scott will be on the primary TNT broadcast, while Ernie Johnson, Shaquille O’Neal, Charles Barkley, Kenny Smith and Draymond Green will present an alternate broadcast of the matchup on Inside the All-Star Game.
Derek Futterman is a features reporter for Barrett Sports Media. In addition, he interns in video production with the New York Islanders and formerly worked as production manager for the team’s radio broadcasts. He previously interned for Paramount within Showtime Networks, wrote for the Long Island Herald and served as lead sports producer at NY2C. To get in touch, find him on Twitter @derekfutterman.
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