When ESPN announced their plan for broadcasting the NBA this year the plan included not having a traditional studio show. When I mean traditional I mean having an actual host with the analysts. You know a person like Ernie Johnson who can read the highlights and control the room. ESPN didn't go with this plan.
ESPN instead went with a four-man studio show with four analysts (Jon Barry, Magic Johnson, Mike Wilbon, and Chris Broussard) who rotate with each other reading highlights. As you can imagine this is a disaster because none of these men are professional broadcasters. They're writers and athletes.
Case in point: Magic Johnson. Magic is one of the greatest basketball players ever and one of the best human's ever. Magic though is not a good at delivering highlights, especially without cue cards. Pay close attention to the audio in this highlight.
Wow that was awkward. As Emma Carmichael points out in the Deadspin post, Magic sounds like he's actually calling the game instead of just calling the highlights. You knew what was going to happen Magic.
I'm going to give Magic a break here because once again he's not a professional broadcaster. He's a NBA legend who should just stick with analyst of the games. My prediction is that ESPN will experiment with this style of studio show for this year and go back to a more traditional studio show with a host. Or they'll just have Wilbon call the highlights. Either way Magic should never call the highlights again.
(Via Deadspin)
It doesn't work when The NFL Today does this with highlights, it doesn't work on ESPN, either.
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