The NBA on NBC

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The NBA on NBC
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Genre	Sports
Running time	150 minutes+ Subject to change
Starring	Marv Albert Bob Costas Bill Walton Ahmad Rashad Hannah Storm
Country of origin	United States
Original channel	NBC (1990-2002)
Original run	November 3, 1990 –June 12, 2002

The NBA on NBC was a weekly presentation of National Basketball Association games on the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) from 1990 to 2002. The NBA on NBC succeeded The NBA on CBS. During NBC's partnership with the NBA, the league rose to unprecedented popularity for the sport, with ratings surpassing the days of Magic Johnson and Larry Bird in the mid-eighties.

[edit] Overview

[edit] Background

The program started on November 9, 1989 when the NBA and NBC reached an agreement on a four-year, $600 million contract. On April 28, 1993, NBC extended their exclusive broadcast rights to the NBA with a four-year, $750 million contract.

[edit] Music

NBC's theme music, Roundball Rock was composed by New Ager John Tesh. The song, which NBC used for every telecast in the league's twelve-year history with the NBA, is today often used by NBA TV for their live game coverage. After briefly considering using the theme for its NBA coverage, ABC decided against it, and has used several theme songs in its first four years of covering the NBA.

Until 1997, NBC would play the rock song Winning It All, by The Outfield<ref>[1]</ref> during its end of the season montage. From 1997 to 2001, several contemporary music pieces were used for the end of season montage (including, in 1997, the R. Kelly song I Believe I Can Fly). In 2002, after NBC's final broadcast, the network aired a montage of memorable moments from every year of coverage, using music from Titans Spirit (from the film Remember the Titans) to Winning It All.

[edit] Regular season coverage

NBC's coverage of the NBA began on Christmas Day each season, with the exception of their inaugural season (which featured a November game between the Los Angeles Lakers and the San Antonio Spurs) and their final season (which included two early season games featuring the return of Michael Jordan with the Washington Wizards). NBC aired the NBA All-Star Game every year (with the exception of 1999, when the game was cancelled due to a lockout), usually at 6:00 p.m., Eastern Time. In 2002, NBC aired the game an hour earlier (at 5:00 p.m., Eastern) due to the Winter Olympics later that evening. Starting in 2000, during the NBA Playoffs, NBC would air tripleheaders on Saturdays and Sundays for the first two weeks of the playoffs. Prior to 2000, NBC would air a doubleheader on Saturday, followed by a tripleheader on Sunday.

On Saturday, December 30, 2000, NBC aired a rare second December game. It was the only time that NBC aired a game between Christmas Day and the start of the regular run of games. In 2001, NBC was scheduled to air an October preseason game involving a NBA team playing an international team; that game was cancelled due to 9/11. During the 2001-02 NBA season, NBC added a significant amount of Washington Wizards games to its schedule (due to the aforementioned return of Michael Jordan). When Jordan became injured during the middle of the season, the network replaced the added Wizards games with the games that had been originally on the schedule (for example, a March 2002 game between the Wizards and Orlando Magic was replaced at the last minute with an Indiana Pacers-Sacramento Kings game).

[edit] Segments

NBC's pregame show was known as NBA Showtime from 1990 to 2000. Starting in 2000, NBC scrapped the title of the pregame show. From 1990 to 1996, Showtime was hosted by Bob Costas. After 1996, Hannah Storm hosted, replaced by Ahmad Rashad in 2001. The video game NBA Showtime: NBA on NBC, by Midway, was named after this pregame show.

The halftime show was sponsored by Prudential Financial (Prudential Halftime Show), NetZero (NetZero at the Half) and Verizon Wireless (Verizon Wireless at the Half). The NBA on NBC also had a segment during the live games called Miller Genuine Moments, which briefly looked back on a particular historically significant and/or dramatic moment in NBA history. This segment was discontinued towards the end of NBC's coverage. For a brief period in 2001-02, NBC aired a studio segment called 24, where each analyst (at that time, Pat Croce, Jayson Williams or Mike Fratello) would have twenty-four seconds to talk about issues concerning the NBA. After Williams was arrested for murder in February 2002, NBC (in conjunction with completely revamping the pregame show) discontinued the segment.

[edit] Announcers

[edit] 1990-1997

NBC's first broadcast team was made up of Marv Albert and Mike Fratello. Other broadcasters at the time included Dick Enberg and Steve "Snapper" Jones. Bob Costas had hosting duties for the pregame show, NBA Showtime. In 1992, basketball legend Earvin "Magic" Johnson became a top game analyst (alongside the likes of Enberg, Albert and Fratello) for The NBA on NBC. Johnson's performance was heavily criticized.<ref>Simmons, Bill (2002-09-27). Magic's Act. ESPN.</ref> Among the complaints were his apparently poor diction skills, knack for "stating the obvious", habit of referring back to his playing days, and overall lackluster chemistry with his broadcasting partners. Johnson would ultimately be slowly phased out of The NBA on NBC after helping commentate the 1993 NBA Finals. In 1994, Mike Fratello left the booth (in order to become the head coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers) and was replaced with Matt Guokas. Albert and Guokas broadcast the 1994 NBA Finals and were joined for the 1995 NBA Finals by Bill Walton. Albert, Guokas and Walton, while not working regular season games together (Walton usually worked games with Steve "Snapper" Jones and play-by-play men Dick Enberg or Greg Gumbel), broadcast the next two Finals (1996 and 1997) together in a three-man booth.

[edit] 1998-2000

1997 was the last time Marv Albert would call the NBA Finals for NBC during the decade. An embarrassing sex scandal forced NBC to fire Albert before the start of the 1997-1998 season. To replace Albert, NBC tapped studio host Bob Costas for play-by-play. Matt Guokas did not return to his post as main color commentator, and was replaced by NBA legend Isiah Thomas. Costas was replaced on the pregame show by Hannah Storm. Midway through the season, Costas and Thomas were joined by recently fired Detroit Pistons coach Doug Collins. Collins, considered one of the best color commentators in the business, served to take some weight off Thomas, who was considered by some to be uncomfortable in the role of lead analyst.

The team of Costas, Thomas and Collins worked the big games that season including the 1998 NBA Finals (which set an all-time ratings record for the NBA). For the 1998-99 season, Thomas was moved to the studio while, Costas and Collins made up the lead team. The 1998-1999 season, which was marred by a lengthy lockout (which resulted in the regular season being shortened to 50 games) included the badly-rated 1999 NBA Finals between the San Antonio Spurs and the New York Knicks. In the 1999-2000 season, Marv Albert was brought back, making a return which included calling that year's lead Christmas Day game.

[edit] 2000-2001

The 2000-2001 season brought to an end Bob Costas' direct role with The NBA on NBC (although Costas would work playoff games for the next two seasons and would return to host NBC's coverage for the 2002 NBA Finals). Costas deferred to Marv Albert, allowing Albert to once again be the lead broadcaster for the NBA, and stayed on only to deliver interviews and special features. On the studio front, Hannah Storm left her spot as a studio host due to maternity leave and was replaced with Ahmad Rashad, while Isiah Thomas left NBC to become coach of the Indiana Pacers. Joining Ahmad Rashad were former Phoenix Suns player Kevin Johnson and former NBA coach P. J. Carlesimo. Marv Albert joined Doug Collins as the number one broadcast team, and the two broadcast the 2001 NBA Finals, which had the highest ratings since 1998. After the season, Collins was hired away from NBC by the Washington Wizards, which forced the network to move the long-time secondary color duo of Steve "Snapper" Jones and Bill Walton to the lead broadcast team with Albert.

During the 2001 NBA Finals between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Philadelphia 76ers, NBC decided to cross-promote with their then-hot quiz show The Weakest Link. During halftime of Games 2 and 3, two 10 minute editions of The Weakest Link aired. The contestants were Bob Costas, Bill Walton, and Steve "Snapper" Jones along with Charlotte Hornets guard Baron Davis and Los Angeles Sparks center Lisa Leslie.

[edit] 2001-2002

The 2001-2002 season featured several anomalies, as NBC started their coverage on the first Saturday of the season, for the first time since 1991. The reason for this was NBA legend Michael Jordan's return to playing, this time for the Washington Wizards. NBC covered an early December game featuring Jordan's Wizards as well, which marked the first time an over-the-air network aired more than one pre-Christmas NBA game since CBS in the 1980s. Also, the return of Hannah Storm from maternity leave meant that she and Ahmad Rashad would alternate studio hosting duties for most of the season. That year, NBC's studio team consisted of Storm or Rashad with former Philadelphia 76ers owner Pat Croce, the returning Mike Fratello, and charismatic former player Jayson Williams. The tandem stayed together through the 2002 NBA All-Star Game. During the week between the All-Star Game and NBC's next scheduled telecast, Williams was arrested after shooting and killing his limo driver. He was promptly dropped from NBC, which also did not return Croce or Fratello to studio coverage. Instead, the network brought in Tom Tolbert who had only recently been added to the network as a third-string analyst paired with Mike Breen. Tolbert stayed on as the lone studio analyst through the end of the season, and won acclaim by several in the media, including USA Today's Rudy Martzke.

Two days before NBC was to begin its playoff coverage, both Marv Albert and Mike Fratello, returning from working a Philadelphia 76ers-Indiana Pacers game on TNT, were seriously injured in a limo accident. That week, NBC juggled its announcing teams, which resulted in Bob Costas and Paul Sunderland working some early round playoff games. Fratello would return to TNT after several days, and Albert returned to NBC for Game 1 of the Western Conference Semifinals between the Dallas Mavericks and Sacramento Kings. The season would also turn out to be NBC's last with the NBA. The league, in January 2002, announced a six-year agreement with The Walt Disney Company and AOL-Time Warner, which gave over-the-air broadcast rights to ABC. That year, NBC's playoff ratings were much higher than previous years, including a record-high ratings for the 2002 Western Conference Finals. Those high ratings did not translate to the Finals, which scored their lowest ratings in over two decades.

[edit] List of broadcasters

[edit] Voice over artists

This is the NBA on NBC!

Voiceover announcer Jim Fagan

Jim Fagan's voice was heard in nearly every single NBA on NBC telecast. Fagan, the voice behind "This is the NBA on NBC", also did several commercial voice-over promotions for The NBA on NBC. Mitch Phillips also did voice over work for The NBA on NBC, primarily in commercials.

[edit] Ratings

During its twelve-year run, The NBA on NBC experienced ratings highs and lows for the NBA. In the 1990s, the NBA Finals ratings were stellar, with the exception of 1994 and 1999. In 1998, the NBA set a record for Finals ratings, with an 18.7 for the second Chicago Bulls-Utah Jazz series, the last championship run by Michael Jordan's Bulls The very next year (after a lockout which erased part of the season), the ratings for the Finals plummeted, and the NBA's ratings have been lower ever since. In 2002, NBC set a record for highest rated Western Conference Final, including a 14.2 for Game 7 of the series between the Los Angeles Lakers and Sacramento Kings.

NBC's highest rated regular season game was Michael Jordan's first game back from playing Minor league baseball; the March 1995 game between the Chicago Bulls and Indiana Pacers scored a 10.9 rating (higher than all but three NBA telecasts on ABC). As a comparison, the first game in Jordan's second comeback (a game against the New York Knicks that aired on TBS opposite the 2001 World Series) scored a rating between a 3.0 and 4.0. NBC's first game of Jordan's second comeback scored ratings similar to that number.

[edit] Criticisms

Several NBA observers accused NBC and the NBA of fixing games for or being too obsessed with certain teams and individual players. NBC benefited from having 11 of the 12 Finals it televised involve the popular Chicago Bulls or the large-market Los Angeles Lakers and New York Knicks; however, smaller market teams such as those in San Antonio, Sacramento, Phoenix, Houston, Utah, Philadelphia, New Jersey, Indiana, Orlando and Miami all made regular appearances on NBC games during its run.

Many believed that some NBA on NBC broadcasters, notably Ahmad Rashad and Jim Gray, "kissed up" to certain players or teams. Rashad was frequently ridiculed for his close friendship with superstar Michael Jordan. Some observers felt that Rashad seemed to be a shameless Jordan cheerleader rather than a credible journalist. Rashad was tagged "Little Mike" (a play off from the famous advertising campaign featuring Penny Hardaway and a Chris Rock voiced puppet) from radio personality Jim Rome.

The network was also criticized for never including a constant corner screen score/time bug<ref>The constant scorebox in the corner of the screen was not something NBC liked to use until the final minutes of a close game, when it was absolutely necessary (and only in their final years). They would much prefer, like those that came before them, to flash the score across the bottom of the screen while teams crossed half-court.</ref> during their run of televising NBA (and other sports) games, even though all other networks used them on every other sports broadcast.

[edit] The end of The NBA on NBC

	For one last time, you've been watching the NBA on NBC.
—Bob Costas, on the network's last broadcast in 2002.

When NBC Sports' contract with the NBA expired in 2002, the corresponding rights were passed to The NBA on ABC, which returned on Christmas Day 2002, with a doubleheader. NBC had made a four-year, $1.3 billion bid in the spring of 2002 to renew its NBA coverage, but the league instead made six-year deals worth $4.6 billion with ESPN, ABC, and TNT. It should be noted that in the last four years of the final contract, NBC lost $300 million. NBC only offered $325 million a year compared to ESPN's $400 million. ESPN gets $1.70 million a month from its 86 million cable subscribers, an income source NBC does not possess.

Whereas NBC normally televised 33 regular games a year, ABC would televise approximately 15 regular season games a year. According to Commissioner David Stern, the reduced number of network telecasts was at the NBA's own request since the NBA believed that they would get a higher audience for a single game (in contrast to NBC's tripleheaders). From 2002 to 2006, the NBA's ratings on broadcast television (ABC) have dropped almost a full ratings point (from nearly a 3.0 average rating to just above a 2.0 rating). The NBA on NBC averaged a 5.5 average rating during the 2002 NBA Playoffs. ABC averaged a 3.3 average rating for the 2005 NBA Playoffs.

In response to the impending loss of NBA coverage, NBC Entertainment president Jeff Zucker said:

We lost football two years ago, and we stayed a strong No. 1. We lost baseball, and we stayed a strong No. 1. Now we're about to lose basketball, and I believe we'll stay a strong No. 1. The fact is, it's had no an impact on our prime time strength. . . NBC can now program all of Sunday nights without going around basketball. I think that's a huge advantage for us. We haven't been able for the last several years to put a program at 8 o'clock (such as "American Dreams") because we've had the NBA.

NBC Sports chairman Dick Ebersol had this to say:

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NBC Sports replaced the Sunday afternoon single games and doubleheaders of The NBA on NBC with games of The AFL on NBC in February 2003.

[edit] Future

After NBC signed a contract with the PGA Tour, which involved the network significantly increasing the amount of golf it televised, it became increasingly unlikely that the NBA would return to NBC for the foreseeable future. In addition, NBA Commissioner David Stern is attempting to renew the league's TV deal with The Walt Disney Company and Time Warner to keep games on ABC, ESPN and TNT into the next decade.<ref>[2]</ref>

[edit] Memorable moments

During The NBA on NBC, the NBA experienced some of its most memorable moments. Multiple Michael Jordan and Reggie Miller game winners were televised by NBC, as well as some of the great comebacks in NBA history (the Los Angeles Laker comebacks in 2000 and 2002, and the Boston Celtics comeback in 2002). While NBC only televised one Game 7 of the NBA Finals, in 1994, seven of the Finals it televised went six games.

[edit] Miscellaneous images

Marv Albert and Mike Fratello prior to an NBA Finals game.	NBC's minimized time/score bug from its final four years of carrying the NBA.	NBC's large score bug from its final four years of carrying the NBA.	NBC's scoring bug in the mid-1990s; NBC would flash the score occasionally instead of leaving it on permanently (i.e., FOX, ESPN, etc).
NBC's graphic showing the final score from an NBA Finals game.

[edit] See also

• The NBA on ABC
• The NBA on CBS
• The NBA on ESPN
• The NBA on TNT
• List of NBA Finals broadcasters
• List of NBA Eastern Conference Final broadcasters
• List of NBA Western Conference Final broadcasters
• List of National Basketball Association All-Star Game broadcasters

[edit] References