The phrase “Happy NBA Day” trended on X/Twitter on Tuesday morning as fans welcomed back The Association. That’s fitting because happiness is what the NBA wants from media partners Amazon Prime Video, NBC Sports, and ABC/ESPN this season. Based on early returns, that’s what the league’s going to get.
More inspiring NBA coverage would be a departure from recent seasons when coverage has often revolved around flaming hot takes, criticism of today’s players by ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith and TNT’s Charles Barkley, and the never-ending debate over the league’s TV ratings. Where is the appreciation for the beauty and athleticism of hoops, asked critics? Or the discussion of X’s and O’s strategy so common in NFL coverage?
This spring, commissioner Adam Silver expressed his frustration to Kenny Beecham, whose “Enjoy Basketball” production company takes a cheerfully positive approach.
“Sometimes I think they don’t spend enough time talking about why people love this game,” Silver told Beecham and his crew on Numbers on the Board podcast. “Recently I was at a meeting with Mike Krzyzewski, the former coach at Duke. He condensed it with this headline. He said we should educate people about the game—and celebrate the game. Educate and celebrate. I wish there was more of that.”
Silver doesn’t need to issue coverage diktats to the three U.S. media partners paying a collective $77 billion over the next 11 years to televise or stream games. They know the drill—and they got the message. Moreover, a growing number of TV executives have shared their own concerns with me that hoops media has gone overboard. Especially when it comes to feuds pitting media personalities against current stars, such as Stephen A. Smith vs. LeBron James. Or Barkley vs. “bus riding” Kevin Durant. So get ready for kinder, gentler NBA coverage this season.
No, we won’t see Sir Charles & Co. holding hands and singing kumbaya. Or ESPN’s Mike Breen wearing a “Give Peace a Chance” T-shirt. But we’ll see more appreciation for the incredible athleticism of players, more discussion of coaching strategy—and less navel-gazing over TV ratings. Consider:
Amazon Prime Video: As it did with the NFL’s Thursday Night Football, Prime will lean heavily in to analytics for inaugural U.S. coverage. The streaming giant just unveiled a new state-of-the-art studio in Los Angeles that features an all-LED regulation half-court and basketball hoop that can be used for demos all season. As Prime’s U.S. chief Jay Marine told me at the Front Office Sports Tuned In summit in New York: “Our approach is really twofold: Celebrate and educate. Celebrate the game. Celebrate how great these players are. I mean the modern player in the NBA, the skill level up and down the bench is incredible, and sometimes there’s too much weird negativity out there when really we should be celebrating how good these guys are. That’s true for the WNBA as well, which is also part of our rights deal. Then, on the educate side, it’s really about trying to teach the game within the game. Make fans smarter. And then figure out the right way to bring technology in to do that.”
NBC: The network leaned heavily in to nostalgia for its return to NBC coverage with a season-opening doubleheader Tuesday night. Viewers heard John Tesh’s familiar “Roundball Rock” theme that served as the NBA’s anthem during NBC’s previous run from 1990 to 2002. Michael Jordan, who won all six of his titles with the Bulls on NBC’s airwaves, returned for a halftime interview with Mike Tirico. Bill Simmons basically said Jordan could read the phone book during his Tirico hits and he’d still watch. The whole production had a premium look and feel, similar to Sunday Night Football. ESPN and Prime should be on notice. As ESPN’s Don Van Natta Jr. wrote on X: “The NBA on NBC is that old friend you haven’t seen in years but when you reconnect, you realize how much you missed him.”
During the network’s NBA media preview at its Stamford, Conn., headquarters, new studio analyst Vince Carter said he’s keen to educate fans. “I want people to come here and say, not only are we going to see the stars of today, but we’re going to learn something,” said Carter. Similarly, game analyst Grant Hill noted he’s not a fan of the current vs. former players debates that takes up so much oxygen on debate shows. “Personally speaking, I just celebrate the guys we have now in the league—shine a light on what they do great,” Hill said.
ABC/ESPN: As my colleague Colin Salao reported, ESPN has debuted a new Coaches Corner segment with Tim Legler where he breaks down game film with current coaches. Tim Corrigan, ESPN’s SVP of sports production, says there’s “nobody better” than Legler to apply Dan Orlovsky–style analysis to the NBA. “We’re teaching the game and coaching the game and analyzing the game,” Corrigan said on a presser previewing ESPN’s coverage. King James is a fan of the move by ESPN. “Love to see this. Hot take culture so tired,” he wrote on X.
As Mike Tyson famously noted, everybody has a plan—until they get punched in the face. Even if the NBA and its media partners want more feel-good coverage, they’ll have to wrestle with the fiercely independent opinions of commentators like ESPN’s Smith and TNT’s Barkley, whose Inside the NBA shifts to the four letters this season.
James, the NBA’s biggest star, and Smith, ESPN’s highest-profile talent, have been publicly at each other’s throats for months. Smith didn’t hold back when asked about the Chosen One on Carmelo Anthony’s 7PM in Brooklyn podcast. “I don’t like his ass. Not a little bit. … I believe he’s one way publicly, he’s another way privately,” said Smith about King James.
And Barkley is Barkley: Unfiltered and unpredictable. While Silver has been hailed across the industry for nearly tripling the NBA’s media-rights payout, Sir Charles had a different opinion. “One of my biggest concerns is we have shit on the fans so much moving the games to NBC and Amazon, fans are going to have a hard time finding the games—because we’re all going to be on different nights now,” he told reporters at the Bruce, Barkley and Basketball Golf Classic this month. “But they just took the most money; they didn’t care about the fans.”
Don’t forget, “negative” coverage” is in the eye of the beholder. There’s an argument that the NBA’s personalities, feuds, and soap-opera-like storylines are what makes it so culturally relevant. Let’s face it: NFL, MLB, and NHL stars come off as bland compared to the huge personalities dominating the NBA. Without them, there’d be no NBA Twitter. And The Association wouldn’t be the most followed U.S. sports league across social media. So the challenge is for the NBA, and its partners, to find the right balance.
We know one thing: Positivity sells this season. Consider the rapid rise of Beecham and his teammates at Enjoy Basketball. The young star told FOS he views their commentary as “friendship packaged as sports coverage.” That’s become a lucrative business model.
This spring, ESPN hired Beecham and his costars to contribute to NBA draft coverage. Now his digital/lifestyle company is partnering with NBC to bring its podcasts to Peacock and NBC Sports Now. It’s the first time NBC has joined forces with a creator-led media company for original NBA programming. When I asked Beecham about James’s complaints that NBA coverage was too negative, he agreed with the Lakers superstar.
“If you compare the coverage between us, baseball, NHL, and the NFL, we definitely tend to be more negative than positive. I want to steer closer to the positive,” said Beecham.
I think NBC was listening.
