For the first scrimmage, I caught Gary and Doug’s call on League Pass to see how these Bubble games would look on TV. While I have been listening to the G-Man for some 35 years, the game was kind of disappointing. I think it was more due to the distraction of an empty gym, those flashy video boards, and the lack of any excitement when something spectacular happens on the court. Not to mention the camera angles and production quality of the game was rather limited. Kind of looked like a Division II college broadcast. I know Gary and Doug really have not worked together before and calling a game from nearly 3000 miles away is just weird, I can only hope it gets better when the games really count, or viewers are going to tune this experiment out.

For Saturday’s game, I listened to Jason and Henry’s call on the League Pass audio broadcast. While it had some of the same issues as the TV call, not seeing an empty gym and those distracting signage boards allowed one to imagine something a little closer to a real NBA game. They still sounded some 3000 miles away from the action, but I am hoping the audio feed levels can be increased a little to make it sound like they are closer to the game. I will admit, I do enjoy Jason’s call of the action and he plays off Henry well from their years of working together.

I have not caught an ESPN or TNT game yet and am very interested to see how they attempt to make the broadcast more like what we are used to seeing. Of course, it will never be the same as the experience in a packed arena, but the NBA should be able to get creative and bring the fans something new and exciting to the game telecasts.