Marv Albert and Reggie Miller are scheduled to work Wednesday’s Hawks-Knicks Game 5 on-site at Madison Square Garden. Plus: ESPN has added a new SportsCenter anchor, a longtime NBA reporter has passed away, and NBC is partnering with a Nielsen rival.
Marv and Reggie working Knicks game on-site at Garden
TNT NBA broadcasters Marv Albert and Reggie Miller are set to call Wednesday’s scheduled Hawks-Knicks Game 5 on-site from Madison Square Garden in New York, marking just the second time this season that Turner has sent a broadcast team to the site of a game. Albert, Miller and the since-departed Chris Webber worked the March 7 All-Star Game on-site in Atlanta. All other games have been called remotely from talent’s homes or Turner’s Atlanta studios.
With the Hawks up 3-1 and a potential Game 7 likely set for ABC, the game could mark the retiring Albert’s final NBA broadcast from the Garden. He was the voice of the Knicks from 1967-2004.
Turner originally planned to keep its NBA broadcast teams remote until the Eastern Conference Finals, but now says it has changed plans and will begin sending announcers on-site during the second round. ESPN has been using on-site announcers for playoff games on ABC, but does not plan to begin doing so for games on ESPN until the second round.
ESPN adds new SC anchor
Fox Sports broadcaster Brian Custer is joining ESPN as a SportsCenter anchor and play-by-play voice on college football and basketball, it was announced Tuesday. Custer, who had been with Fox since 2014, will begin on SportsCenter next month. His new role will not affect his ongoing duties as host of Showtime Championship Boxing.
Longtime Hornets beat writer Bonnell passes away
Longtime Charlotte Observer writer Rick Bonnell, best known for covering Charlotte’s NBA franchise from the Hornets’ inception in the 1988-89 season, has died at age 63. Bonnell had been with the Observer since 1987 and previously worked for the Syracuse Herald-Journal.
NBC partners with Nielsen rival on Olympic OOH measurement
NBC Sports said Wednesday that it will partner with Tunity Analytics to provide out-of-home viewing data for its scheduled primetime Summer Olympics broadcasts. Tunity has been measuring OOH viewing for several years and unlike Nielsen is able to measure such viewing on muted televisions. NBC plans to incorporate the Tunity data into its existing mix of Nielsen linear data and streaming numbers from Adobe Analytics.
