The NBA has told regional sports networks that they want the people calling their games to return to calling live action on the road, as opposed to an office or studio, per John Ourand of Sports Business Journal.
Some RSNs had pulled announcers off the road at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, then kept them off in what appeared to be a method of cutting costs. The play-by-play voices and analysts at some networks had been spending last season, at least part of the time, calling games remotely.
Bally Sports and NBC Sports are the two largest regional sports networks carrying NBA games. Again, some of the announcers and production crews were staying back for away games — and the NBA has said no more.
“The move counters a trend of producing games remotely that networks instituted in the early days of COVID for health-related and logistical reasons,” Ourand wrote. “As an added benefit, these changes also saved money on production.”
Ourand added that “RSNs still plan to reduce the number of people that travel to games as they have found that certain jobs can be done just as effectively from a remote studio, tape operator, statistician or score bug operator.”
The league and its teams felt that the quality of the broadcasts suffered when away games were broadcast remotely, as opposed to live and in the arena, Ourand wrote.
“League execs feel that the announcers that attended games had more energy, better insight and tighter storytelling than their counterparts in studios,” he added.
CLIP: Good job by the NBA making it mandatory that RSNs have to send their announcers on the road. @Ourand_SBJ had the story in his newsletter https://t.co/OGym5xInFc
POD: https://t.co/7LkSSrrShl pic.twitter.com/8TsbHxRjol
— Andrew Marchand (@AndrewMarchand) October 27, 2022
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