Sports Media Watch had a chance to sit down with Emmy Award winning TNT/TBS broadcaster Ernie Johnson last Thursday.
Among the topics of conversation: the chemistry between Johnson, Kenny Smith and Charles Barkley on Turner’s Inside the NBA studio show, what Johnson considers to be the highlight of his 30-year career, and the incident in October where he was booed by Phillies fans during the NLCS trophy presentation.
SMW: Inside the NBA is one of the most acclaimed studio shows in sports, and a lot of that has to do with the continuity of you, Kenny and Charles being there for so many years. Now I know Charles and Kenny have both said they want to do front office stuff, Charles has said he wants to be the governor of Alabama. How much longer do you think the current group will be together?
Ernie: I would no way of knowing. And you know what? That not knowing doesn?t bother me at all, because I think it helps you just appreciate every day, whether it?s at work or anywhere. That?s the same approach, big picture in life. I?m perfectly satisfied not knowing what?s going to happen next in my life. And that goes with the show too.
We have had such a cool run. If you sat here ten years ago before Charles? first show, and said, ?how long do you think this is going to last?? I would have said, ?I have no idea, and I just want to see where it goes?. I feel the same way now. It?s been ten years ? we?ll see. If these guys have a chance to do something they really want to do, that?s great. …
[Someone] who?s had a dream of being a GM or being a governor or being a coach, whatever, and they get that, you can never be selfish enough to say, ?oh, no, no, no, the show is more important?. It?s not. This has just been a great ride, and so we just enjoy it every night we?re together.
SMW: How much of the success of the show do you think depends on the chemistry that you, Kenny and Charles have?
Ernie: All of it. You can?t fake that stuff, you try to manufacture it. Nobody could have predicted this. When we first started out, I was concerned ? I thought, once the novelty wears off, Charles would get tired of it a little bit, and say, ?oh, I don?t know if this is what I want to do. But once we started hitting it off, and it was almost immediate ? and there?s no way you can think, ?oh lets put these three guys together, that?ll work? ? it just happens.
If we didn?t have that, if we had agendas going on on this show, where someone said ?I need more facetime, I need this to be about me, I need to have this? ? that doesn?t exist on this show. Which is rare in TV. It just doesn?t exist. We just want to have a good show and have a good time. We always realize that game night is not about us, it?s about the games we have. We?re just there doing our thing. So if anybody had a big ego problem, or was hard to get along with, or we had friction, it would never work. Chemistry is the key to the whole thing.
SMW: Do you think you?d be able to recreate this kind of chemistry with another group of people? Or is this more of a once-in-a-lifetime type of thing?
Ernie: I don?t know if it?s once in a lifetime, because there are some good shows out there. But I think we?re very fortunate to have the fact that our three personalities just sort of mesh, because we come at it from different angles, and nobody takes themselves too seriously. I think that?s really key.
And I think you get in trouble by trying to duplicate a show. I get a lot of questions during the baseball playoffs, where people say, ?so, how is this like Inside the NBA? And are you guys trying to make it like Inside the NBA?? And I say, no, you can?t tell Cal Ripken, ?hey, be more like Charles.’ Or tell Eck [Dennis Eckersley], ?you be the Charles, you say something outrageous.? You just have to be who you are.
My dad was a broadcaster for 35 years. Best advice he ever gave me was be yourself. And that?s all you can be. Nobody?s telling Charles to be something he?s not, that?s the way Charles is. Same with Kenny. Same with me. If you take three guys and say, ?okay now, look, for these five hours tonight, I don?t want you to be who you are all the time, I want you to be more like that guy I saw on ?? That won?t work. And fans see through that in no time, they see that things are phony, they see things that are contrived. They know with us, it?s just, who knows what?s going to happen next? And if you?re confused at home, or you?re wondering ?hey I wonder what they?re going to do now,? join the club. I mean, I?m hosting the show, and I don?t even know what?s going on half the time. That?s the beauty of it.
SMW: A lot of the freewheeling stuff really works. ? I?m watching a lot of the other studio shows, a lot of it seems too paced, a little bit too scripted. On ESPN, you?ll see the opinions of the analysts on the bottom of the screen while they?re talking.
Ernie: I don?t compare what we do to what anybody else does. I just know that if we tried to do something that was rehearsed ? number one, you couldn?t get these guys in here early enough to do a rehearsal ? and it would kill the spontaneity of the show. The most important ? the chemistry is important, obviously as I?ve told you ? but Tim Kiely is the producer of the show. And as long as he and I are on the same page, and he knows the elements we have for the show, and I know the elements ? we have a production meeting, Kenny and Charles aren?t there, all the other members of the crew are there, from graphics to videotape and anything else. And so, as long as I know where he wants the show to go, I?ll get us there. That?s why I?m here. I get us from point A to point B to point C. Kenny and Charles are the guys who played the game, they?re the ones who give insight on, ?here?s what being talked about in the huddle?, ?here?s what this team is probably talking about in the players only meeting, I?ve had those.? That kind of thing. I?m just trying to kind of lead these guys to where we need to be. And TK and I know that, ?hey, this could be funny if we have this, if we could set that up, and draw Kenny in, and maybe Charles.’
It?s that kind of thing. It?s not scripted, and it?s not rehearsed, but there?s an understanding between me and Tim that we know what we have at our disposal that night, and things that might work, things that might be funny ? ?hey we have a piece of tape of Kenny getting dunked on by Charles? ? or whatever we have. That?s the important thing. I don?t want anybody to feel like it?s just this random show, where everyone shows up five minutes before we get on the air and says, ?what are we going to do.? We?ve got a plan. But a lot of times, stuff that happens and carries the show wasn?t even talked about in the production meeting. It?s something that somebody says, that Charles or Kenny says in the first segment of the pregame show that we carry through the rest of the night. And it was never discussed in the production meeting.
SMW: Kind of like when Kenny said about Terrell Owens ?
Ernie: Sure, exactly. That?s exactly the thing. Because everybody on that crew listens, too. Alex, the paintbox guy who does all that stuff, he?s listening ? ?oh, I think I could probably do something here in the next segment that shows up.? That is the beauty of the show, is the fact that Tim is so open minded and so not tied to the stopwatch. It?s not like another show, where a guy will make a comment, and they?re basically telling him, ?look, you?ve got 17 seconds to make your point about why it?ll be a good game.? That?s when it looks rehearsed, that?s when it looks like it?s been practiced to death. You don?t get that here. Tim, to his credit, if we?re rolling with something, he just lets it go. And he?ll get in my ear sometimes, and say, ?yeah, we?ve got to move on.? And we will. But it?s never anything like, ?you have 30 seconds to do this, and then 20 seconds to do this.? Let?s see what?s working and what?s funny tonight.
SMW: You?ve worked basically everything ? college football, golf. Where does Inside the NBA rank for you among your career highlights?
Ernie: I think the career highlight for me, the best part of my career ? I?ve been at Turner for 20 years, and I started in TV in ?79, so it?s 30 years ? was working with my dad on Braves games for parts of four baseball seasons in the ?90s. I had a chance, around my Turner schedule, to go on SportsSouth, which was regional cable, and do a game a week with my dad. The greatest of all time. That was the highlight, nothing will ever top that.
That being said, the length of the basketball season ? we?re there from October/November through June ? it?s such a long season, and it?s once a week, it is such a cool part of what I do. Because I love those guys. I really do. And we just have such a great relationship. It is so fun to look forward to a show, knowing it?s not going to be a cookie-cutter, this-week-will-be-like-last-week-which-was-like-the-week-before ? I mean, you don?t know. And that?s what keeps it fresh, and makes it fun. And we?re sitting here and you say, okay, on the air in 45 minutes ? and Charles won?t be here tonight, unfortunately ? but that?s what keeps it fun. Because you say, I know what we?ve got in the saddlebags tonight, let?s see how much of it we use, or what happens unexpectedly that becomes the focus of the night. It?s great. Believe me, I?ve got the greatest job in the world. Don?t get me wrong, from all those things I?ve been able to do, you?re talking ? PGA, British Open, baseball, football, Olympics, everything.
SMW: NFL for a little while.
Ernie: Yeah, back in the 90s. All of that has been tremendous, I mean, I?ve been here for 20 years and haven?t worked a day in my life.
SMW: If you don?t mind me saying, you are one of the nice guys in sports media, at least from what I see on the air.
Ernie: (laughs) I appreciate that.
SMW: And as one of the nice guys, I was so surprised, in October in Philadelphia, when you were giving the trophy presentation ? [Ernie starts laughing] ? I couldn?t believe they were booing you. It?s like booing Santa Claus, which they did. What was that like? Did that surprise you?
Ernie: Well, it was weird. I?m trying to figure out exactly why it was done. And maybe I shouldn?t say it was a total surprise, because the fans in Philadelphia were giving us a lot of grief even when we were doing our shows. And I think some of it was a backlash a little bit, maybe they weren?t happy with TBS doing baseball, maybe they just don?t like me, maybe they thought it was an umpire, who knows? But they were saying some pretty rude things just while we were trying to do the show. We?d be in commercial break, and we?d be getting all kinds of stuff, like ?you suck? and ?TBS sucks? and ?go home.? And a lot of that stuff ? I?ve never experienced that in all my years in the NBA, in any arena, when we take the show on the road for Conference Finals or go to All-Star ? never experienced that. Never experienced it in the previous two years of baseball.
SMW: Right. In Tampa, or Boston or Colorado ?
Ernie: Yeah. Never. And so, it was really weird. And we all kind of looked at each other, like ?wow, what?s happening here?’ But that night ? because I?m saying what I said the previous two years too, when I had to host that ? I would say ?hey, I?m Ernie Johnson with TBS,’ because there?s nobody like, ?now direct your attention to the pitcher?s mound, where Ernie Johnson of TBS will present something,’ there was none of that.
SMW: They have that in the NBA, though.
Ernie: In the NBA they do, but in baseball they don?t. So, basically, you?re going from bedlam ? to suddenly a voice comes out of nowhere and is saying — so I always say, ?hey it?s Ernie Johnson with TBS, it?s been our pleasure to, you know,? and I hear all these boos. (laughs) Well you gotta play that off. And I just said, well, thank you.
SMW: That actually was so perfect.
Ernie: (laughs) It was pretty weird. And the reaction to a lot of my friends was really funny. And again to TK?s credit, I go up there to do the postgame show, and the first thing they do is play the tape back and then all the guys are booing me. Again, that?s just a great example of how we don?t take ourselves seriously. We?re certainly not going to ignore that it happened, but we might as well make light of it.
SMW: Hey, that?s the best way to do it. I loved the fact that you guys went out there, and had the big sign that said we hate Santa Claus ?
Ernie: (laughs) Yeah. EJ and then Santa. That?s the way it works, believe me. We know we?re in the toy department, here. This is not, on a night in night out basis, not a life and death thing. We?re doing basketball games, we?re doing baseball games. It?s an escape. People have enough stuff going on. Sometimes, all they want is a few hours to say, ?I just want to watch a ballgame, see if these guys see anything ridiculous tonight?. And for a second, forget about stuff and laugh. And maybe learn a little bit about basketball from the guys who have been there.
