A longtime voice of the NBA, TNT's Kevin Harlan, revealed a key change in the broadcasting of games, one that will take place as soon as July 31 when the 2019-20 season resumes at Walt Disney World.
Familiar TNT faces like Harlan, Reggie Miller, and Chris Webber won't be present in Orlando once the season resumes, likely until the conference finals, which are slated to start in September. Once on that stage, assuming broadcasters are allowed to join the fray, there won't be much that strays from the usual besides the empty crowd and the fake noise to simulate the atmosphere.
Until then, though, Harlan says the announcers will be calling games from the TNT studios in Atlanta:
“What I've heard from the folks at TNT is we will be in the studios in Atlanta and they will set up as close to possible a broadcast table like we would have courtside,” Harlan said during a guest appearance on SiriusXM NBA Radio, according to Richard Deitsch of The Athletic. “We will have, I'm assuming, crowd noise pumped into our headsets.”
While it might be a rather odd experience for the usual suspects that call the games, Harlan doesn't envision a weird experience for the viewers:
“For the viewer, I don't think it’s going to seem dramatically different,” said Harlan. “Now, you're not going to have courts that you recognize from Milwaukee, or Los Angeles, or Boston, so that's going to be a little bit weird. But if we're all just kind of sitting there watching, I don't know that we'll really notice a great deal of difference.”
Hopefully the transition into this truncated resumption of the 2019-20 season is as smooth as Harlan thinks it will be, considering a sports-starved nation will be counting down the days until the ball is bouncing on the hardwood after a long hiatus.
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