Monday Musings: Can TV analysts be ‘casuals’?

Plus: NCAA coverage recommendations and NBC’s Olympic renewal

2Y6YAK7 New York, USA. 26th Sep, 2024. Shaquille O’Neal attending Zeta Live 2024 at Center415 in New York, NY on September 26, 2024. (Photo by Efren Landaos/Sipa USA) Credit: Sipa USA/Alamy Live News

Sports Media Watch presents thoughts on recent events in the industry, starting with Shaquille O’Neal and the question of how informed TV analysts need to be about the sports they cover.

In TNT’s farewell NBA season, the network’s studio show “Inside the NBA” has become a piñata of sorts for much of the NBA fanbase. Nearly all of the acrimony concerns its two biggest stars, Charles Barkley and Shaquille O’Neal, whose Statler and Waldorf routine regarding the state of the modern game has evidently begun to wear thin.

The latest episode came last week, when O’Neal showed off how little he knew about the resurgent Detroit Pistons by crediting their former star PG Chauncey Billups, now coach of the Portland Trail Blazers, for their turnaround. After being called on his mistake by Candace Parker (this was the Tuesday TNT show, not the main Thursday edition), he defended himself by saying he does not watch Detroit. One could argue O’Neal was not entirely serious, and his later clarification was more conciliatory than the viral clipping of his comments would indicate — “it’s not that I’m not paying attention, I don’t really get to see them a lot” — but paired with previous podcast comments calling the Pistons “boring” and “four games under .500” (they are six games above), it indicates an analyst out-of-touch with even the basic storylines of the league.

Indeed, for a show that was once firmly at the center of NBA culture, ‘out of touch’ does seem to be an increasingly apt description of “Inside,” which next season will become the flagship NBA studio show for ESPN/ABC. From O’Neal’s recent comments to Barkley saying as late as January that he would pick the Sixers over the Cavaliers in a playoff series, one does not get the impression that there is a lot of homework being done.

The question then becomes whether that is a problem. Even in the golden age of “Inside the NBA,” few were tuning in for Xs and Os insights. Surely, O’Neal is speaking for much of the audience when he says he does not watch Detroit and assumes they are boring. Is the point of a television analyst to educate the audience or to serve as a voice of the audience?

Consider the other great studio shows. Could Kirk Herbstreit have gotten away with saying that he did not watch Boise State last season? Considering the intensity of college sports fandom, one imagines that Bronco fans would have immediately vaulted past their Florida State counterparts to become his primary hecklers. If Terry Bradshaw praised Sean McVay for the Washington Commanders’ turnaround last season, there would have been mounting pressure for him to retire.

Or, one could consider O’Neal’s own colleagues as they make their annual shift to the college game for March Madness. For nearly 15 years, Barkley and Kenny Smith have gone out of their comfort zone to work NCAA men’s basketball tournament studio coverage for CBS and TNT Sports. For nearly all of that time, the sport’s ardent fanbase has complained about their lack of knowledge about the college game. Yet those ardent fans — the ones who follow the games all season long — are not the target audience for March Madness, which outside of the Super Bowl is sports television’s ultimate gathering of ‘casuals,’ those who are watching games for the first time all season on the opening Thursday of the tournament.

Indeed, O’Neal — as a player once said to him on “Inside” — is a ‘casual.’ Odds are that he is not familiar with your game.

There has always been a desire in sports television to play to the ‘casuals’ by going for name recognition over insight — from Ryan Seacrest on the Olympics to Rush Limbaugh on Sunday NFL Countdown to Stephen A. Smith — and there is some legitimacy to that strategy. As in politics, playing solely to the base is usually a losing strategy. In sports, the swing voter is someone who has no idea the Pistons are good and may assume that Billups — best known as a Piston — was coaching them, rather than the Trail Blazers.

Of course, one should never take the base fully for granted. CBS has Clark Kellogg as a counterweight to Barkley, someone who can speak to the viewers who have been following the full five-month college basketball storyline. On TNT’s NBA show, that role may fall to Smith (or Parker on the Tuesday edition). Either way, the goal should be to reward the loyal, week-to-week viewers without alienating the Johnny-come-lately who may not be aware that St. John’s is good this season.

Does any of that excuse O’Neal? To be frank, no. It is one thing for the casual fan to lack basic knowledge of the league and quite another for an analyst. Nevertheless, his being out of touch is bound to be more upsetting to the ardent fan than to the broader audience, or the executives who probably are not watching the games in too much depth themselves.

How much longer will Smith and Barkley work March Madness?

This season could well mark the final time Smith and Barkley work the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, as there is no word on whether the TNT analysts will continue to moonlight for CBS once “Inside” moves to ESPN/ABC next season. Realistically, one imagines they will continue in those prominent roles, but given Barkley’s complaints about his workload, and his periodic invocations of retirement, the end is coming sooner rather than later.

Even after all these years, the interplay between the more traditional CBS crew and the freewheeling “Inside” style remains an awkward fit. There have been a few memorable moments over the years, but it is hard to say that the blended CBS/TNT studio team is better than the CBS-only studio team that works most of the season.

One can always tell that one is not getting the ‘full Barkley’ on CBS, which has some benefits — there will presumably be no viral rants during March Madness — but ultimately is a bit like watching a sitcom character during a crossover episode. The timing is off, the lines are not as good, the chemistry is not quite right. Barkley is approaching as many seasons on the March Madness studio team (14) as he played in the NBA (16), and if the fit is still awkward, it is probably time to use the upheaval at TNT as an opportunity to shake things up.

A suggestion for ESPN’s coverage of the women’s tournament

Much has been done to bring the marketing of the NCAA women’s basketball tournament up to par with the men’s, including the use of the “March Madness” branding and logo. Yet much of what defines March Madness is CBS-specific, particularly the theme music that the network began using in 1992 and the “One Shining Moment” montage at the end of the tournament. ESPN — whose main college basketball theme has all the gravitas of the interstitial music on “Doug” — debuted a new tournament-specific theme song last year. Even so, even the most devoted women’s basketball fan would be hard-pressed to recall, or hum, that theme if asked.

The suggestion here is that CBS and ESPN make a deal that would allow ESPN to use the CBS theme and “One Shining Moment” on the women’s tournament. In return, perhaps ESPN could loan Jay Bilas to CBS for the men’s tournament, as it did for many years in the 2000s in exchange for greater tournament highlight rights. Once the TNT NBA deal expires after this season, there are bound to be some vacancies on the CBS/TNT NCAA teams — Grant Hill, Stan Van Gundy, Jim Jackson, Brendan Haywood and Steve Smith are all from the TNT side of the agreement.

NBC’s Olympic renewal delays the inevitable

It was somewhat surprising last week to see that NBC has renewed its Olympics rights deal through 2036, tacking an additional two Games onto its current deal. The first of those is the 2034 Salt Lake City edition, a U.S.-based Olympics that would have been attractive on the open market. From the vantage point of 2025, it is easier to imagine what Netflix and Amazon might look like in 2036 than to do the same for NBC. It may be the case that by 2036, those two streamers in particular will be on steadier ground.

Long-term, it seems unlikely that the Olympics will remain on a linear broadcast network for much longer beyond 2036 — or even what form linear broadcast television will take by that point. Netflix, which acquired rights to the 2027 and 2031 FIFA Women’s World Cup in December, would have been an interesting player in any potential negotiations for the 2034 and 2036 Games. By 2038 and 2040, it may well be considered the favorite.