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''The NBA on NBC'' is a former TV Show that televised National Basketball Association games on the '''National Broadcasting Company''' ( NBC ) and was produced by NBC Sports . In the 1990-1991 Season , NBC succeeded CBS Sports as the official American TV broadcaster of the NBA. OVERVIEW Background The program started on November 9 , 1989 when the NBA and NBC reached an agreement on a four-year, $ 600 million contract. On April 28 , 1993 , NBC extended their exclusive broadcast rights to the NBA with a four-year, $750 million contract. NBC's catchy, popular, dramatic, and melodic Theme Music , '' Roundball Rock '' was composed by New Ager John Tesh . The song, which NBC used for every telecast in the league's twelve-year history with the NBA, is today often used by NBA TV for their live game coverage. After briefly considering using the theme for its NBA coverage, ABC decided against it, and has used five theme songs in its first four years of covering the NBA. During the closing credits for NBC's coverage of the NBA Finals , they would regularly play the motivational Rock Song ''Winning It All'', by The Outfield . {Link without Title} NBC's coverage of the NBA began on later that evening. Starting in 2000 , during the NBA Playoffs, NBC would air tripleheaders on Saturdays and Sundays for the first two weeks of the playoffs. Prior to 2000, NBC would air a doubleheader on Saturday, followed by a tripleheader on Sunday. Regular segments The pregame program with , was named after this pregame show. The halftime show was sponsored by Prudential Financial (''Prudential Halftime Show'') and NetZero (''NetZero at the Half'') among others. ''The NBA on NBC'' also had a segment during the live games called '' Miller Genuine Moments'', which briefly looked back on a particular historically significant and/or dramatic moment in NBA history.''' ANNOUNCERS 1991-1997 NBC's first broadcast team was made up of Marv Albert and Mike Fratello . Other broadcasters at the time included Dick Enberg and Steve "Snapper" Jones . Bob Costas had hosting duties for the pregame show, '' NBA Showtime ''. In 1992 , basketball legend Earvin "Magic" Johnson became a top game analyst (alongside the likes of Enberg, Albert and Fratello) for ''The NBA on NBC''. Johnson's performance was heavily criticized. Among the complaints were his apparently poor Diction skills, knack for "stating the obvious", and overall lackluster chemistry with his broadcasting partners. Johnson would ultimately be slowly phased out of ''The NBA on NBC'' after helping commentate the 1993 NBA Finals . In 1994 , Mike Fratello left the booth and was replaced with Matt Guokas . Albert and Guokas broadcast the 1994 NBA Finals and were joined for the 1995 NBA Finals by Bill Walton . Albert, Guokas and Walton, while not working regular season games together (Walton usually worked games with Steve "Snapper" Jones and play-by-play men Dick Enberg or Greg Gumbel ), broadcast the next two Finals ( 1996 and 1997 ) together in a three-man booth. 1998-2000 1997 was the last time Marv Albert would call the NBA Finals for NBC during The Decade . An embarrassing Sex Scandal forced NBC to fire Albert before the start of the 1997-1998 Season . To replace Albert, NBC tapped studio host Bob Costas for play-by-play. Matt Guokas did not return to his post as main color commentator, and was replaced by NBA legend Isiah Thomas . Costas was replaced on the pregame show by Hannah Storm . Midway through the season, Costas and Thomas were joined by recently fired Detroit Pistons coach Doug Collins . Collins, considered one of the best color commentators in the business, served to take some weight off Thomas, who was considered very uncomfortable in the role of lead analyst. The three worked the big games that season including the legendary 1998 NBA Finals (which set an all-time Ratings record for the NBA). For the 1998-99 Season , Thomas was moved to the studio while, Costas and Collins made up the lead team. The 1998-1999 season, which was marred by a lengthy Lockout (which resulted in the regular season being shortened to 50 games) included the badly- Rated 1999 NBA Finals between the San Antonio Spurs and the New York Knicks . In the 1999-2000 Season , Marv Albert was brought back, making a triumphant return which included calling that year's lead Christmas Day Game . 2000-2001 The 2000-2001 Season brought to an end Bob Costas ' direct role with ''The NBA on NBC'' (although Costas would return to host NBC's coverage for the 2002 NBA Finals ). Costas deferred to Marv Albert , allowing Albert to once again be the lead broadcaster for the NBA, and stayed on only to deliver interviews and special features. On the studio front, Hannah Storm left her spot as a studio host due to Maternity Leave and was replaced with Ahmad Rashad , while Isiah Thomas left NBC to become coach of the Indiana Pacers . Joining Ahmad Rashad were former Phoenix Suns player Kevin Johnson and former NBA coach P. J. Carlesimo . Marv Albert joined Doug Collins as the number one broadcast team, and the two broadcast the 2001 NBA Finals , which had the highest Ratings since 1998 . After the season, Collins was hired away from NBC by the Washington Wizards , which forced the network to move the long-time secondary color duo of Steve "Snapper" Jones and Bill Walton to the lead broadcast team with Albert. During the 2001 NBA Finals between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Philadelphia 76ers , NBC decided to cross-promote with their then-hot quiz show '' The Weakest Link ''. During halftime of Games 2 and 3, two 10 minute editions of ''The Weakest Link'' aired. The contestants were Bob Costas , Bill Walton , and Steve "Snapper" Jones along with Charlotte Hornets guard Baron Davis and Los Angeles Sparks center Lisa Leslie . 2001-2002 The 2001-2002 season featured several anomalies, as NBC started their coverage on the first Saturday of the season, the first time they'd done that since 1991 . The reason for this was NBA legend Michael Jordan 's return to playing, this time for the Washington Wizards . NBC covered an early December game featuring Jordan's Wizards as well, which marked the first time an over-the-air network aired more than one pre-Christmas NBA game since CBS in the 1980s . Also, the return of Hannah Storm from Maternity Leave meant that she and Ahmad Rashad would alternate studio hosting duties for most of the season. That year, NBC's studio team consisted of Storm or Rashad with former Philadelphia 76ers owner Pat Croce , the returning Mike Fratello , and charismatic former player Jayson Williams . The tandem stayed together through the 2002 NBA All-Star Game . During the week between the All-Star Game and NBC's next scheduled telecast, Williams was arrested after shooting and killing his limo driver. He was promptly dropped from NBC, which also did not return Croce or Fratello to studio coverage. Instead, the network brought in Tom Tolbert who had only recently been added to the network as a third-string analyst paired with Mike Breen . Tolbert stayed on as the lone studio analyst through the end of the season, and won acclaim by several in the media, including USA Today 's Rudy Martzke . Two days before NBC was to begin its playoff coverage, both Marv Albert and Mike Fratello, returning from working a Philadelphia 76ers - Indiana Pacers game on TNT , were seriously injured in a limo accident. That week, NBC juggled its announcing teams, which resulted in Bob Costas and Paul Sunderland working some early round playoff games. Fratello would return to TNT after several days, and Albert returned to NBC for Game 1 of the Western Conference Semifinals between the Dallas Mavericks and Sacramento Kings . The season would also turn out to be NBC's Last With The NBA . The league, in January 2002 announced a six-year agreement with The Walt Disney Company and AOL-Time Warner , which gave over-the-air broadcast rights to ABC . That year, NBC's playoff ratings were much higher than previous years, including a record-high ratings for the 2002 Western Conference Finals . Unfortunately, those high ratings did not translate to the Finals , which scored their lowest ratings in over two decades. ''NBA on NBC'' Broadcasters
Voice Over Artists Jim Fagan is still today NBC Sports' announcer. He is the one who announced things like "This is ''The NBA on NBC''." and "Welcome to NetZero at the Half." during the ''Roundball Rock'', and was the main voice-over announcer on the Madison Square Garden Network , the New York regional television channel, between 2002 and 2005 . One of the Voice-overs for Commercial s of ''The NBA on NBC'' was Mitch Phillips , whose voice also appears on TV commercials of Wyeth 's Caltrate and of Toyota 's Toyotathon promotion, and on other car commercials. RATINGS During its twelve-year run, ''The NBA on NBC'' experienced ratings highs and lows for the NBA. In the 90s, the NBA's Finals ratings were stellar, with the exception of 1994 and 1999 (ironically, two years which involved the large television market of New York City ). In 1998, the NBA set a record for Finals ratings, with an 18.7 for the second Chicago Bulls - Utah Jazz series, the last championship run by Michael Jordan 's Bulls The very next year (after a lockout which erased part of the season), the ratings for the Finals plummeted, and the NBA's ratings have been lower ever since. In 2002 , NBC set a record for highest rated Conference Finals game, with a 14.2 for Game 7 of the Western Conference Finals between the Los Angeles Lakers and Sacramento Kings . See Also CRITICISMS Several NBA observers accused NBC and the NBA of fixing games for or being too obsessed with certain teams. While these accusations were inaccurate, NBC benefited from having 11 Of The 12 Finals it televised involve the popular Chicago Bulls or the large-market Los Angeles Lakers and New York Knicks . Many believed that some ''NBA on NBC'' broadcasters, namely Ahmad Rashad and Jim Gray , "kissed up" to certain players or teams. Rashad was frequently ridiculed for his not too secret close friendship with superstar Michael Jordan . To put things in the proper perspective, some observers felt that Rashad came across on camera as more or less shameless Jordan cheerleader and/or would be Gravy Train rider than a credible Journalist . Rashad would soon receive the tag "Little Mike" (a play off from the famous advertising campaign featuring Penny Hardaway and a Chris Rock voiced Puppet ) from Radio personality Jim Rome . The network was also criticized for never including a constant Corner Screen Score/time Bug during their run of televising NBA (and other sports) games, even though all other networks used them on every other sports broadcast. THE END OF ''THE NBA ON NBC'' When NBC Sports' contract with the NBA expired in 2002 , the corresponding rights were passed to '' The NBA On ABC '', a program which came back to TV after 28 years, on Christmas Day 2002 , with a Doubleheader . NBC made a four-year, $ 1.3 billion bid in the spring of 2002 to renew its NBA coverage, but the league instead made six-year deals worth $4.6 billion with ESPN , ABC , and TNT . It should be noted that in the last four years of the final contract, NBC lost $300 million. NBC only offered $325 million a year compared to ESPN's $400 million. ESPN gets $1.70 a month from its 86 million cable subscribers, an income source NBC does not possess. Whereas NBC normally televised 33 regular games a year, ABC on the other hand, would televise only 15 regular season games a year. According to Commissioner David Stern , the reduced number of network telecasts was at the NBA's own request since the NBA believed that they would get a higher audience for a single game (in contrast to NBC's tripleheaders). In response to the impending loss of NBA coverage, NBC Entertainment president Jeff Zucker said :"''We lost Football two years ago, and we stayed a strong No. 1. We lost Baseball , and we stayed a strong No. 1. Now we're about to lose basketball, and I believe we'll stay a strong No. 1. The fact is, it's had no an impact on our Prime Time strength''." :Without professional hoops on Sundays , he said, "''NBC can now program all of Sunday nights without going around basketball. I think that's a huge advantage for us. We haven't been able for the last several years to put a program at 8 o'clock (such as " American Dreams ") because we've had the NBA''." NBC Sports replaced the Sunday afternoon single games and doubleheaders of ''The NBA on NBC'' with games of '' The AFL On NBC '' in February 2003 . MEMORABLE MOMENTS
SEE ALSO REFERENCES # ESPN.com - NBA - PLAYOFFS2002 - The day Tesh's music might die # jordan_m_2pt_061498c . slips and allows Jordan to make the game-winning two-point field goal in the dwining seconds of the 1998 NBA Finals. Bob Costas: "Jordan. Open. Chicago with the lead!" # nba-low.mov QuickTime MOV video: voice-over Mitch Phillips on commercial spots for ''The NBA on NBC''. # NBCSports.com # NBA Showtime: NBA on NBC # NBA Showtime: NBA on NBC - Game Revolution Review Page # NBA finalizes TV deals: Goodbye NBC # Inquiry into Sports Programming Migration # NBA on NBC - Short cut. # TV Theme - NBC, NBA 02.wav # TV Theme - NBC, NBA.wav # InsideHoops - NBA TV Contracts |
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