While the NBA is leaving TNT Sports after this season, Grant Hill is staying behind to remain on the company’s college basketball coverage.
Hill has struck a “long-term” contract extension with TNT Sports to remain as the company’s lead college basketball analyst, it was announced Thursday. He will continue to serve on the lead broadcast team for the NCAA men’s basketball tournament — which TNT shares with CBS — and add new roles on TNT’s upcoming BIG EAST and Big 12 basketball games.
Hill joined TNT in 2013 as an NBA analyst, a role that he has continued to play even after taking the lead NCAA Tournament spot in 2015. He was reportedly a contender for ESPN’s lead NBA analyst position last season, and one imagines the two new NBA broadcast partners — NBC and Amazon — would have also had interest in his services. His role as part-owner of the Atlanta Hawks did complicate his NBA duties somewhat, preventing him from calling the 2021 Eastern Conference Finals when Atlanta made an unexpected run that season.
The looming departure of the NBA from TNT figures to have significant implications for NCAA Tournament coverage moving forward. Ever since TNT Sports (then-Turner Sports) began partnering with CBS on the tournament in 2011, TNT NBA analysts have figured prominently in the event, from the studio trio of Ernie Johnson, Charles Barkley and Kenny Smith to a slew of game analysts.
In addition to Hill, this year’s tournament lineup included TNT NBA analysts Jim Jackson, Stan Van Gundy, Steve Smith and Brendan Haywood. It is likely that at least some of those analysts will be picked up by ESPN, NBC or Amazon for the NBA. The Hill extension should at the very least keep the top broadcast team intact for next season and beyond.
Hill is set to call the NCAA men’s Final Four and National Championship for a tenth time this weekend, working all of those events alongside analyst Bill Raftery. The duo long ago called the men’s Final Four more times than any other pairing in the history of the event, as the famed duo of Billy Packer and Al McGuire only did so four times.
