After a cacophony of complaints about lackluster announcing, Turner Sports will finally give the critics what they want.
TNT NBA analyst Charles Barkley will join the broadcast team during Game 3 of the National League Championship Series on TBS. Barkley will be interviewed live during the game to help promote NBA coverage on TNT, which begins next Thursday.
The Barkley cameo is hardly surprising. Even before TBS’ broadcast team was eviscerated by several outlets in the media, it was a fair bet that the NBA on TNT would get at least some promotion during the baseball playoffs — especially considering Tony Gywnn made an appearance on Inside the NBA during the Eastern Conference Finals.
That being said, the cameo certainly is timely. One of the major stories of this baseball postseason has been the TBS studio team, which was criticized from day one for being too bland. From Los Angeles Times columnist Christine Daniels writing “It’s time to place a bullpen call to Barkley” to New York Times writer Richard Sandomir noting that Turner “[failed] to hire compelling talent“, there have not been many kind reviews for the analyst duo of Cal Ripken Jr. and Frank Thomas. That TBS added Ron Darling to the studio crew for the NLCS is an indication that critics were not the only ones to find Ripken and Thomas at least somewhat inadequate.
For his part, TBS MLB host Ernie Johnson, who works with Barkley and Kenny Smith during the NBA season, says Ripken should be judged on his own merits and not be compared to the more loquacious Barkley.
“Charles is one of these guys who it?s almost like diplomatic immunity sometimes,” Johnson told The Sports Business Daily recently, “I think that there are just a few individuals out there who fit into that mold. So the last thing you want to do is say, ‘Hey Cal, be Charles.’ … I think a lot of times, producers have said, ‘We need our Charles Barkley.’ And you can?t, there?s just one. So you really just look at the strengths of whoever is there. We?ve got Cal Ripken, he?s going to be straightforward and really well thought-out and probably not shooting from the hip as much as Charles does because nobody does, so you take it from there and then you build on it.”
