Warriors TV broadcast team rated as worst in NBA by national fan poll
Posted: Thu May 2, 2024 8:57 pm
Fitzgerald is awful, a homer. Azubuike is actually knowledgeable.
https://www.sfgate.com/warriors/article/bob-fitzgerald-kelenna-azubuike-worst-nba-fan-poll-19435695.php
[b]Warriors TV broadcast team rated as worst in NBA by national fan poll[/b]
By Gabe Fernandez
May 2, 2024
Golden State Warriors broadcasters Bob Fitzgerald and Kelenna Azubuike have made a name for themselves among basketball fans for all the wrong reasons.
Sports media blog Awful Announcing published a ranking of all 30 broadcast teams around the NBA on Wednesday based on a poll of hundreds of fans. Participants assigned teams grades of A through F (skipping E). Coming in at dead last was the Golden State duo. Of the 562 fans that graded Fitzgerald and Azubuike, nearly 60% gave them an F, by far the highest proportion of any broadcast team, and their GPA was 0.91. For context, only two other teams broke the 30% barrier of F’s: the Philadelphia 76ers (ranked No. 29, 37.26% F) and the Boston Celtics (ranked No. 27, 35.27% F).
This is the third edition of the blog’s quadrennial fan-sourced NBA rankings. The Warriors’ broadcast team received their highest rankings during the first ranking in 2016, when Fitzgerald’s partner was Jim Barnett, at No. 14. The second ranking came out in 2020, one year after Azubuike became the broadcast’s full-time analyst. They tumbled all the way to 27th.
It’s worth noting that fans could assign grades to any broadcast group, regardless of whether they support, or even follow, the teams those groups respectively cover. Even if disdain for the Dubs’ success over the last decade made its way into some grades, there’s hardly a conspiracy here: the reputation of Fitz and Buike precedes them. Their style of obnoxious homerism has even rubbed Warriors fans the wrong way, and whenever they’re on the call for viral moments, non-Golden State fans can’t help but recoil at the commentary regular viewers may have grown numb to.
There’s no incentive to change things given how things are going with the only performance metric that matters: Nielsen ratings. While numbers across the league aren’t great, the Warriors keep bringing in eyeballs at steady-at-worst rates.
However, even if these fan votes were to translate into poor ratings, this is likely just how things will be for Golden State games for the foreseeable future. As The Athletic’s Steve Berman reported in 2021, Fitzgerald has received support from Warriors star Steph Curry and owner Joe Lacob. Those are ultimately the only two sets of eyeballs that matter.
https://www.sfgate.com/warriors/article/bob-fitzgerald-kelenna-azubuike-worst-nba-fan-poll-19435695.php
[b]Warriors TV broadcast team rated as worst in NBA by national fan poll[/b]
By Gabe Fernandez
May 2, 2024
Golden State Warriors broadcasters Bob Fitzgerald and Kelenna Azubuike have made a name for themselves among basketball fans for all the wrong reasons.
Sports media blog Awful Announcing published a ranking of all 30 broadcast teams around the NBA on Wednesday based on a poll of hundreds of fans. Participants assigned teams grades of A through F (skipping E). Coming in at dead last was the Golden State duo. Of the 562 fans that graded Fitzgerald and Azubuike, nearly 60% gave them an F, by far the highest proportion of any broadcast team, and their GPA was 0.91. For context, only two other teams broke the 30% barrier of F’s: the Philadelphia 76ers (ranked No. 29, 37.26% F) and the Boston Celtics (ranked No. 27, 35.27% F).
This is the third edition of the blog’s quadrennial fan-sourced NBA rankings. The Warriors’ broadcast team received their highest rankings during the first ranking in 2016, when Fitzgerald’s partner was Jim Barnett, at No. 14. The second ranking came out in 2020, one year after Azubuike became the broadcast’s full-time analyst. They tumbled all the way to 27th.
It’s worth noting that fans could assign grades to any broadcast group, regardless of whether they support, or even follow, the teams those groups respectively cover. Even if disdain for the Dubs’ success over the last decade made its way into some grades, there’s hardly a conspiracy here: the reputation of Fitz and Buike precedes them. Their style of obnoxious homerism has even rubbed Warriors fans the wrong way, and whenever they’re on the call for viral moments, non-Golden State fans can’t help but recoil at the commentary regular viewers may have grown numb to.
There’s no incentive to change things given how things are going with the only performance metric that matters: Nielsen ratings. While numbers across the league aren’t great, the Warriors keep bringing in eyeballs at steady-at-worst rates.
However, even if these fan votes were to translate into poor ratings, this is likely just how things will be for Golden State games for the foreseeable future. As The Athletic’s Steve Berman reported in 2021, Fitzgerald has received support from Warriors star Steph Curry and owner Joe Lacob. Those are ultimately the only two sets of eyeballs that matter.