Yeah. Jeff and Barkley literally say they have to stop calling out the league on they bull cause of the warnings they get and they won't stop cause that ain't them.
No they were let go because ESPN was trying to save money. They were let go at the same time ESPN purged a lot of well known, on air commentators, and staff, right after Pat McAfee was signed. Then ESPN replaced them with the no name announcers they have now. These new ones, are paid less because they don't have the years of experience as the ones they let go. That's why none of them tell you any real information, and they just repeat what they saw on social media posts.
Media companies are detached from normal people. Look at Disney pushing their DEI. Something needs to change drastically. Most younger people aren't already watching TV anymore but we're also starting to not watch movies and TV shows. Nowadays I just consume RU-vid because all the movies are the same.
Yep, them becoming leftist politically is bizarre as a lot of sports fans are on the right. But yeah coverage overall has been trash for 15 years. It needs too go away
All the sports commentators do it now, and about every subject. They could be discussing uniform designs and they would sound like they were outside shouting while someone was mowing the grass.
They also fired Alvaro Martin and Carlos Morales from ESPN Deportes, their latin america transmission, i dont even know how to describe it but watching an espn deportes game with those 2 was an absolute delight, they have the best chemistry i have ever seen on a casting crew, i used to want to tune in every wednesday and friday regardless of the game just to listen to them, and SOMEHOW they fired them to put the absolute worse product i have ever seen on tv, insane. ESPN is just getting worse by the day and honestly its just sad
I’m so afraid to see what things are gonna look Like once TNT goes. They’re single handedly keeping things afloat. But it’s not just the nba. Everything is becoming excessively corporate sanitized / modernized.
@@jansmitowiczauthor78that’s cronyism homeboy. If it was capitalism, Disney would be out of business by now. Stealing your tax money and using it to keep companies alive that provide nothing consumers want is the opposite of capitalism
@@jansmitowiczauthor78 That's incompetence* These organizations have always been capitalistic and managed not to suck for most of their existence, but nothing survives incompetence
Worst part about espn coverage is the way casuals view the game now. They can only see the game in stats and hyperbolic hot takes . I saw a post that said “how come no one is gonna mention that jimmy butler is 0-2 in the finals”. It’s just ridiculous. They don’t determine Greatness by skill set or the circumstances / context for each playoff run. They see it as stats and regurgitated media narratives
It's true. I watch the whole game and go to reddit to see comments and everyone only judges players based on stats or media narratives and is trying to farm likes. Everyone tries to get attention nowadays. Same for media. And they trade the truth and the quality of analysis for it. It's just disgusting. At least watch the games guys. They don't even watch the games.
I don't have a problem with people valuing winning. Mj is the goat because of his Winning and Lebron is a looser because of his 4-6 finals record and quitting on teams.
Imagine having a crew so inept that when White slammed his head on the floor, then immediately hit a 3, they didn't call back to Bird in 91 doing the same! If you go back to when Bird did it, Marv Albert called back to Walt Frazier! This crew is the worst crew of all time. Bring back Jeff Van Gundy and Mark Jackson!
Most Sports media has made the sport about drama, narratives and star power. Most people go with the flow and don't even mind X's and O's and the nuances of the game
Honestly ESPN has been slowly going down ever since "The Decision". It's just way more apparent now with how these "analysts" showed they don't watch any of the actual games with the Finals predictions.
It more has to do with the fact since Disney bought them. Have you seen what every brand under Disney looks like from ESPN to Star Wars has looked like? It’s not good.
To the people who say removing the trophy logo didn't cause the decline, you're missing the point. It's just one sign of a much larger trend, which is that the Finals is losing its soul. What was once an event is now just another round of playoffs.
I remember when you could actually tell who the teams are and now most of the time it’s the road team wearing home uniforms and home teams wearing the road jerseys which is messy from a visual standpoint. Tradition is being thrown out the window in so many ways.
That’s everything tho. The over simplified version of everything catering to the oversimplified mindless drones that our population is now. It’s not just the nba
Commissioner Valdermont aka Adam Silver and LeBronze James totally ruined the NBA. Handicapping defense for the sake of the casual fan and astronomically gaudy offensive stats is the fastest way to destroy the competition in the sport. Boring 3 point shooting, and ball dominant one man basketball is all we're left with.
The problem isn’t the logo and it’s not the announcers. The referees are dog shit and several of them are believed to be corrupt by most fans. The game itself is boring as shit except to playground Warriors who think nothing is more exciting than a 30 foot jumpshot. In the last week I watched a playoff game with Mark Aguire and Sam Perkins against Magic and Kareem. Then i saw Shaq and Hardaway vs Jordan and Pippen. Both games were impossible to turn away from no matter how old or how many times I’ve seen them. They were exciting, full of drama, and showed incredible skill from both teams. In this playoffs I saw Irving playing bad for four out of five games, Luka playing hurt and having everyone bitch about his defense constantly, versus Tatum and Brown playing completely average and Boston winning because they put up 11 more long jumpers per game at about 2% better efficiency. No one was overcoming anything, the play was uninspired and stagnant, and the finals MVP had worse statistics than six guys from both of those games I watched. The NBA has turned into a practice session of shooting practice and about 10% of its previous audience gives a fuck .
Yup i didn't see like any player do anything special, like you said both Tatum and Brown where just like average. The Mavs where just worst boring series.
@@slowmojo9355 that’s what you get when you lean so much on role players that are castoffs from other teams. Boston deserves some credit for the defense but they were literally daring people like Jones and Washington to shoot and they simply couldn’t make anything. 31% from three for the series. If they just had resisted the temptation to shoot threes at all and continued scoring for the paint where they had a huge advantage, they would’ve been better off than missing all those shots and giving up fast break points off of long rebounds .
.... so you're saying you watched it? You had to have if you wrote such a long winded comment and gave so much detail. That's all that matters to the league and that's how they get money. Whether you are "hate watching" or you are enjoying it doesn't change their bottom line.
It was a cost cutting measure. While ESPN hasn't helped the NBA, the problem is that there is no more defense in the games and the athletes have alienated huge chunks of the viewing market
The audio you played of Costas was from the closing comments of the 98 Finals broadcast. Right after Chi won number 6. I'll never forget it because he described the end of times as we knew them in the league then, and accurately predicted the future of teams. I still watch that clip and the end credits from the broadcast with the classical music lol
That whole series. The Bulls were in serious danger of losing...injuries, exhaustion, home court. But Karl Malone was a choke and MJ was not. It was epic. Epically horrible for us Jazz fans, as I thought (correctly) that it was the end of an era or two, and it was.
Everyone is missing the elephant in the room. ESPN's massive decline in quality came after they were bought by Disney. Disney made sure to push out some of the best talent they had because they didn't check the right boxes. Disney is a dumpster fire, and everything they touch turns to ash.
Not sure about ESPN, I think you guys ignore the rise of the internet. There was no way that ESPN could ever compete with the internet, even in the golden age of ESPN it still has nothing on the sheer quantity and quality of sources we have to chose from online regarding your specific interest. But yeah, they did absolutely destroy Star Wars.. my God.
That's funny because up until the finals it was actually great. You guys just bitch about everything. The NBA playoffs have never been that great until the conference finals onward. It's a series and will never be good as college or other sports like football that are single elemination until you get two relatively evenly matched teams and it goes to 6 or if we get lucky 7.
Kinda saw this downfall coming, the moment ESPN took away the broadcast of the in-arena introductions that gave the NBA Finals a big time feel. Now, just feels like another regular season game.
@@grsafran id agree but that’s saying something because it was not physical at all. Watch a game from the 90’s it looks much more like pickup basketball, not ticky tacky bullshit fouls I hate it
@@tim.noonanKid, when MJ played they changed ALL the rules to make it easy for him to dominate, when Wilt Chamberlain played, they changed ALL the rules to make it hard for him to dominate. Do you have a comeback to this? No? Because MJ himself didn’t after Wilt told him that in 1997.
This is the same network that put Booger McFarland in an elevated chair and let him actually commentate for Monday Night Football. By far one of the most embarrassing decisions by the geniuses at ESPN.
I'm old enough to remember that Jordan used to be the main hype and talked about all the time by the media. My dad HATED watching Jordan win, likely for the same reason people hate the LeBron hype.
Saying "all" nba fans loved mark Jackson as a commentator is as ridiculous as blaming poor ratings on the logos on the court. Absurd. The reason nobody wants to watch is because the basketball thats being played is absolute garbage. Whoever shoots the most 3s wins. Disgusting.
And the REASON that 2019 Finals was rated as highly as it was... is cuz of the Warriors. NOT the Raptors. Ppl say they want parity, but in reality, the numbers/ratings don't lie.... ppl love DYNASTIES
Espn didn’t get rid of Van Gundy and mark Jackson for “some reason” or to “shake it up”. Disney corporation contracted immensely last couple of years and didn’t want to pay the higher salaries to make their bottom line look better. Ergo - a shittier espn product for the viewers.
It’s not just the coverage of the NBA though. It’s the product in general. They shoot way too many 3 pointers. The refs rarely call travels/carry even though it routinely happens throughout every single game.
While I agree with many of your points, the elephant in the room is that the NBA is just not the same game. Both teams run a 5 out pick and roll offense that you do with your friends. It's drive and kick and shoot three after three after three. You can't play defense without fouling, no carrying and traveling makes it near impossible to guard 1-on-1, and perhaps most important of all: the players are as unlikable, pouty and overpaid as ever.
@@otaviofrn_adv Well, actually...Sterling was messing up that franchise for all of Stern's tenure as commissioner, and it was all fine with Stern. ~Well, Actually Guy
its hard to watch a basketball game and know the refs are going to determine the winner. the penalties that favor one team over the other is just too hard to ignore
CBS coverage of the NBA Finals in the 1980s was the pinnacle of coverage. Dick Stockton and Tom Heinson were the epitome of professionalism and class. Brent Musberger as a host of the coverage was awesome too. NBC was a close second with Marv Albert and Mike Fratello, and of course Bob Costas in the studio. Disney/ABC/ESPN coverage has been awful from the very beginning.
I loved Musberger, he was fun and made everything seem important. Stockton was solid. Albert was great, his voice was the soundtrack of the 90's NBA. Things went really downhill after the NBA left NBC. ABC/ESPN peaked actually when they had Al Michaels for a couple of years doing it. Having Breen/Van Gundy/Jackson for 17 straight years was so long and stale, they really needed to shake things up, but they won't spend the money to hire the best commentators. My favorite booth for the Finals was actually 1995-1997 with Albert, Goukas, and the immaculate, always entertaining Bill Walton. I also loved 1989-1990, Stockton and Hubie Brown. The best of ABC was 2005 with Michaels and Brown.
I came here to say the latter statement. We went from hearing the likes of Marv Albert, Mike Fratello, Bob Costas, Hubie Brown, and Doug Collins break down the game and really add knowledge to: JVG "That's not a foul. That's not a foul. This is the Playoffs." MJ "Momma, there goes that man." I'm not absolving Doris Burke of her complete non sequiturs on the air, nor am I forgetting Bill Walton's "throw it down Big Man" to everyone 6'4" or taller while broadcasting on NBC, but ESPN's problem existed long before Doris Burke became the color commentator. Also, for the record, Bill Walton was prone to hyperbole and canned responses, but he still offered valid and unique insights.
If that existed more teams would take advantage of it. You saw Boston drive it down Dallas throat due to their lack of int. But the 3 shot isn’t just because it’s trendy. The inside defense is real strong in today’s NBA. Watch Bostons White, Brown, Horford, Porzingis, Holiday, and Tatum defend the interior against Dallas in the finals.
@@theraVen27 It's ridiculous to say interior defense is real strong in today's NBA, because it isn't by a long shot, but you do have a point, of course, that accomplished three-point shooting makes it unrealistic to focus on interior defense.
@@damac5136 I don’t mean this insultingly- but that’s a low ball iq take. You aren’t looking at metrics and disruption vs highlight blocks and hard fouls of nostalgia. Look at ast numbers, lobs, shots in double and triple teams. Kyrie 30% shooting games. It’s a hell of a lot more than you’re looking at
yea, Bob Costa really set the stage pre game. He made you feel like something big is about to happen. boy, I really miss those days. I miss good basketball, not the watered down sport thats being called basketball. basketball is/was my passion. Back in Bob costa days, even the early 2000s, the commentators were genuine. nowadays, people tell lies to befriend someone. Like a couple weeks ago Perkins said something and Lebron didnt like what he said so Lebron unfollowed him on social media. so that makes steven A and the others tell lies to maintain friendship. such a shame, they ruined the game we love. the game I loved.
Is it ESPN destroyed NBA Finals or is it how the world is today? Everything is done cheap to maximize profit. Everything is so bland. No imagination because it costs too much money. I’m afraid NBA on NBC will be a cheap knockoff of its formal self.
ESPN ruined themselves, so naturally anything they cover after the fact will be a worse version than what preceded it. The axed Max Kellerman, Suzy Kolber, Jeff Van Gundy, and Mark Jackson, 4 of the best broadcasters and analysts they ever had, and have promoted Doris Burke and JJ Redick. Now ESPN features such outstanding, high-journalistic-integrity broadcasting and analysis from the likes of Malika Andrews, Jay Williams, and Kendrick Perkins.
I haven’t watched an NBA finals game since 2020. I don’t recognize the game anymore - from the lack of defence and effort of players to zero loyalty on the fan base, I find the NBA unwatchable.
Too bad you didn't watch this year's finals because in my 44 years of watching the NBA this finals had some of the best defense being played by Boston than I have seen in a decade or so.
Pretty much how this video is doing. If stern was still here this nerdy clown would be chirping just the same. Fact of the matter is that no one hates a product more than a person who buys into it
It’s simple… the players, teams and commentators were BETTER in the past. To me once NBA went from NBC it was all down hill…Marv Albert , Bob Costas, were phenomenal calling plays by Jordan, Magic, Miller, Ewing, etc. Intense and organic rivalries and drama before social media was the BEST!! Now we have contrived narratives, with cringey play calls and diva athletes who tweet their feelings…
The lack of analysis or any real substance makes it feel especially inconsequential. When the broadcasters who present it to you act like they don’t give a shit, that sentiment will infect you. The deepest they go is saying things like “this game is gonna go to whoever wants it more”, “x player is showing up tonight,” or “y player needs to step up” in effort to appeal to the lowest common denominator. After game 3 I just started listening to a podcast in the background while watching the game just because of how dull the commentary felt. These felt like the kinda games I had on side while doing my homework in high school
I hope NBA on NBC brings back that same exact theme song. That alone will get me just to check out a game. Still need to get the correct broadcasters, but starting with Bob Costas may be a winning move to be the primary play-by-play guy and then going from there.
well, John Tesh will have an auction for the song... Fox already has the rights to use in college basketball. NBC will need to open up or find a new theme
They HAD to get rid of Van Gundy because they KNEW they was about to start putting ads on the refs, meaning they were gonna HAVE to get on TV a minimum # of times. Van Gundy would have screamed about the refs!
ESPN is bleeding right now. They’re getting rid of all the big contracts they can. That’s why they dumped the commentators. They’ve lost tons of NBA viewers because they got super political and turned off many fans.
I heard that old school music and I instantly smiled. I was waiting for Bob Costas, Marv Albert and the "tsar of the telestrator" Mike Fratello; with Ahmad Rashad on the sidelines....I miss everything about the 80's and 90's....
It’s the producers. They consistently make horrible decisions, whether it over-coverage of the Lakers, driving fictitious narratives, hiring on-air talent based on controversy over analysis. ESPN was (still is) sinking so the producers decided to make changes to the on air finals broadcast talent when the problem is the producers themselves. They are under additional pressure from streaming services and they are just sinking and sinking
Speaking of the NBA Finals, if Kobe came back to life and lost 19 straight games in the finals, HE WOULD STILL HAVE A BETTER FINALS RECORD THAN LeHairline. Let that sink in.
@RevivedBeast184 Good to see you! We gotta keep fighting the Klutch propaganda machine. These fools want to gaslight us about the past greats in order to prop up these modern-day social media divas with their fake legacy stats.
@@urbaindelva7869 lil bro is thinking way too hard about this 💀 did you consider that the fact LeBalco has ALREADY done that with less rings means his legacy should be that of a T-15-20 player ever?
I'm not sure what that has to do with the point of this video. But to humor your comment, LeBron's overall record in Finals games is 22-33. Kobe's overall record is 23-15. If Kobe came back to life, he would have that same record because he never got back to the Finals after 2010. If he lost 19 straight Finals games, as you said, his record would then be 23-34. Still one more win than LeBron, but also one more loss. So, he would not be much better than LeBron in that regard. Also, losing 19 STRAIGHT Finals games would hurt Kobe's legacy just as much, if not, more than LeBron's Finals record has hurt his legacy. Let that sink in.
You touched the "issue" in some way. Adam Silver cares more about the narrative, rather than competition as such. Moving NBA to a Reality Show, rather than baskerball competition as such. p.s. decline in viewership is also related to online streams ;) EDIT: Competition as such ended since the "Face Of The League" is friendly with every player. All Star Game is the best example
The problem is the product on the court. Nobody play hard, nobody plays defense and they just score a million points. It's just not exciting to watch a bunch of millionaires go through the motions of a basketball game.
@@grsafranBoston played great, I agree. The problem with this years finals was how bad Boston just washed the Mavs. I wouldn’t blame it on the NBA. The outcome was just too 1 sided.
Boston being a really good team doesn't make the other 1,000 games watchable, though. 1) Allow hand check. Not hitting, not shoving, but checking-not giving the offensive player total control. 2) If they don't want to move the 3 pt line back, at least run it the same distance all the way and do away with the short corner 3. Then you might get some more interior play, offensive boards and allow a variety of players to contribute. It would also reduce the universal reliance on 3 pointers and separate out the shooter from the chuckers. Also, more interior play leads to more fast breaks, which is still the most exciting offense in the game.
The players walk all over Adam Silva. Draymond gets suspended cause players were publicly saying stuff and draymond threatened to retire so Silva said "ok go play" and then the NBA puts draymond on the finals media haha.
ESPN wants to check boxes with women, race, orientation etc etc. They only care about politics instead of actual sports now. Nobody wants politics in their sports. We watch sports to get away from that BS
Let's not forget about how much they preferred to talk about Lebron and the Lakers. Imagine talking more about a team that barely made it into the playoffs and not the #1 or #2 seed. So, of course interest will die out when the Lakers almost got swept. Then, you might get some that transition to the team that beat them, but now you're dealing the the law of diminishing returns. You didn't take time in hyping up the other teams. So, once your headline attraction is gone, so is the interest of the audience. The WWe went through this same BS under Vince McMahon.
That's the most stupid thing. They talk about an irrelevant team while they could talk about the Celtics building this team over years or the Mavericks going from 8th seed West to the finals with genius trades. But no. Let's focus on some team that barely survived the play-ins because Zion got injured in the first game where he dropped 30 on them.
