For 36 years, TNT had an NBA broadcast. Next season, they won’t. For all the noise understandably made about high-profile star trades and injuries set to impact the competitive results, this systemic change in how the sport is seen will likely be more seismic to the culture of the sport, which enters a new and unpredictable chapter this season. ESPN keeps its broadcast rights, but in the place of TNT are two new partners: NBC—often via its streaming platform, Peacock—and Amazon Prime.
It’s not surprising that the league’s games will be increasingly internet-bound in their availability. TNT is just a part of a gigantic media company—recently split up, because the scale of it proved too ambitious—and Global Linear Networks, one portion of the Warner Bros. Discovery pie, thought to move the classic NBA broadcast to its streaming service Max (now HBO Max again; feel free to roll your eyes) and boost the streamer’s value. Even in its last days with its most iconic cable collaborator, the league was shading into more multimedia territory, with many alternate camera angles and commentary options available online.
NBC and Amazon seem to be pursuing different appeals as they take over and begin their new stewardships of the sport. NBC is hardly new to the game, as anyone over the age of 30 can immediately tell you. Their 1990’s TV package is perhaps the only one to clearly surpass TNT’s in terms of sheer cultural memory. As you read these words right now, John Tesh’s ultra-classic theme song, “Roundball Rock,” plays in your head. First its huge introductory riff, which sets your blood on fire, and then the high-tempo lounge piano interlude, which cools you down to perfect emotional health. Over that bit is the voice of Jim Fagan, whose deep and calm delivery sets the scene for your next basketball opera.
Fagan passed away in 2017, and the many old recordings of his voice have been used to feed an A.I. program that will recreate it, and allow for viewers to feel like he’s still alive, announcing new players, teams, and storylines to them as they watch the 2025-26 NBA. Fagan’s family signed off on the uncanny concept, the terms of which are not publicly disclosed, but it’s safe to guess that “a whole of money” was part of them. NBC is willing to ball out for one of its most powerful loads of nostalgia. That’s why they’re also paying Michael Jordan what is also probably a big, big pile of cash to be a “special contributor,” a title that has yet to be adequately specified.
Amazon’s approach appears to be a more modern one, which seeks to create a fresh mood of televised basketball. TNT’s classically delightful announcer Kevin Harlan makes it to the platform, along with several other TNT alums: Stan Van Gundy, Ian Eagle, Candace Parker, and Dwyane Wade. Eric Collins, who for the past decade has been making the Charlotte Hornets sound more exciting than any other human possibly could, will be calling games, and how his tremendously bonkers calls translate to the national stage is a question of great interest.
So is Prime’s attempt to usher in a new era of ex-player studio talent. Wade and Parker are part of a larger roster, hosted by Taylor Rooks and also featuring old Dallas Mavericks teammates Steve Nash and Dirk Nowitzki, plus Udonis Haslem and Blake Griffin. Griffin has been making his way onto many different comedy podcasts in retirement, including some very off-kilter dispatches—one featured a live reading of Donald Sterling depositions—where his deftly dry and sometimes R-rated wit is on display. Time will tell how much of his sardonic self Griffin is permitted to be on air. In any event, Amazon is hoping that they’ve collected the seeds for the next “Inside The NBA” tree: something with decades of beautiful growth potential, because they picked the right guys and let them behave the right way on the screen, allowing them to craft together a studio basketball tone for a new generation.
No one believes ESPN can do that, which is why all hope for a fully enjoyable basketball broadcast lies with the two new players on the scene. The old one, which retains rights to the NBA Finals in the latest TV contract, has proved itself to be more interested in maximizing ad revenue than in letting a screen team blossom. They’ve bought the rights to “Inside The NBA,” which is unlikely to ever be the same, as the past year of retirement bonanza indicated to all. Shaq, Chuck, Kenny, and Ernie will be doing something different, collecting their checks and staying friendly with each other, delivering occasional bouts of their singular reverie. But they’ll be brought to us by a network that reduces their sprawling observations and shenanigans to TikTok-sized clips, so that State Farm can have another word or three before the juicy ad window closes, and make Jake the main character of the night. The less of that we have to deal with, the better.
