NBC will lean in nostalgia when NBA returns next season, but it only goes so far

When the Cubs started the Marquee Sports Network five years ago, I urged them to radiate a package from games to WGN. It would have been a wonderful gesture, a confirmation that there is no marquee without a WGN. And for spectators of a certain age – like me – it would have kept a connection to a past era of television.

Unfortunately it never happened. But another network scratches this nostalgic itching. When NBC concludes an 11-year right-wing contract with the NBA this autumn, the spectators will send it to a time distortion in the nineties when the network also owned the rights and Michael Jordans Bullen owned the league.

During the broadcast of the Kentucky Derby last Saturday, NBC exhibited a promo with its greatest stars to announce that “roundball rock” will return as a title song for his NBA reporting. The spectators even saw a white -haired John Tesh, the composer of the song and played him.

NBC then went one step further and announced on Monday that it would use a voice of the former narrator Jim Fagan in his reporting. You know, the guy who said: “This is the NBA on NBC” during “Roundball Rock”. The network received permission from its family to use its reproduced voice for elements such as promos and title sequences. Fagan died in 2017.

We will not hear Marv Albert, Dick Enberg, “Tsar of the Telestrator” Mike Fratello, Matt Guokas, Steve “Snapper” Jones and many others. It is doubtful that Bob Costas is expanded into “NBA Showtime” and do not expect Ahmad Rashad and Willow Bay to appear on “NBA Inside”. Nostalgia has limits.

But NBC tries to give the viewers everything to hire the entry of the Big Game-Aura, which had its programs in the 90s, when they started with dramatic, written openings and included players who no longer broadcast the national networks.

“We will bring a lot back, show the atmosphere of the arena,” NBC Sports President Rick Cordella told CNBC Sport last week. “Here is another example: Michael Jordan's player introduction. Very, very small number of people were actually in the Chicago Stadium” Sirius “from the Alan Parsons project and” 6-6 from North Carolina “etc. The reason why people know so well because NBC showed it.”

Here is the challenge with the NBC: At that time, his weekly schedule for the regular season generally only began after Christmas and benefited from marquee matchups that were anchored by Big Market teams. It finally added its schedule with regional programs.

NBCS New Deal comprises 100 regular games of the regular season on television with the new franchise “Sunday Night Basketball”, which begins after the NFL season, and regional double header on Tuesday evening. Streaming Service Peacock will only radiate about half of the 100 games on Monday evening, with Doubleheaders late in the season.

These are many games to feel big. Nostalgia has its limits again.

And as nice as a gesture is NBC for his older audience, it also has to put on a younger one. Young people and young adults have to look at the games, not just the highlights that are available on social media and in the NBA's own app.

This is the task of Frank Digraci, which NBC called for NBA reporting. He will monitor the entire game production. Digraci has produced Nets games for 26 seasons and comes from a breeding floor from basketball -radio talents at YES Network.

As great as the production of NBC was at the time, the focus was on the games, players and rivalries. The network will start this right to right at the end of the Lebron James-Stephen Curry era. It will be on the market for new superstars that will ultimately advance the success of the network.

Because nostalgia has its limits.

Distant patrol

A special week is for Marlin's Radio Voice Tapt Jack McMullen. The OAK Park-River Forest product is back home to call the Marlins' series against White Sox and next week against the Cubs.

McMullen, Matt Spiegel of the score, is in his first season after three seasons have the triple-a partner of the pirates in Indianapolis. The 27-year-old previously called teams on the lower level in Auburn, New York, and Fort Wayne, Indiana.

• Adam AminPresent AJ Pierzynski And Ken Rosenthal The Cubs Met game will call Fox 32 on Saturday at 6.15 p.m. The game on Sunday is the first this season of streaming service Rokus “MLB Sunday Leadoff”. It is broadcast on the free Roku channel at 11:05 a.m. Spectators do not need a Roku device to watch them. Gary CohenPresent Joe Girardi And Taylor McGregor it will call it.

• ESPN sends the NBA Draft Lottery from Chicago on Monday at 6 p.m. “Sports Center” Anker Kevin Negandhi The show will be held for the first time. He is accompanied by other newcomers, insider Shams Charania and analysts Bob Myers And Jay Bilas. Kendrick Perkins back. The bulls have a 1.7% chance of winning the first choice.