NBC’s Hoop Dreams Redux

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1:05congratulations you made the varsity the podcast my name is john arand and i am pucks sports correspondent and the host of this pod and today we have a fun pod nbc is back in the nba business and in a little more than a week the network is going to carry its first game since 2002. In fact, and I just looked this up, NBC's final game was when Shaq and Kobe swept the Nets in the NBA Finals back in 2002. So I'm happy to have Frank DeGrace and Noah Eagle join the pod as sort of an NBA season preview. Frank is NBC's coordinating producer for NBA games, and he is really well known in the business. He spent about a quarter century doing Nets games for the Yes Network.

1:53And Noah, of course, is a play-by-play prodigy. The son of Ian Eagle, Noah's going to handle a bunch of NBA games for the network too. But before we get to Frank DeGrease and Noah Eagle, today is Sunday, October 12th. And sorry, but I'm going to talk one final time about the sports media conference that Puck is putting on with Moffitt Nathanson on Thursday of this week. I'm happy to announce we're officially sold out. There are no more tickets left. but we will have a ton of coverage in my private email in the coming weeks. And you'll hear some of my onstage interviews on future pods. But I just wanted to mention this because I really wanted to offer a quick thanks for all the support on this.

2:35It's pretty cool to sell out more than a week before the event. So thank you. Anyway, what am I watching today? I want to draw your attention to a study put out by USC about athlete-owned media. Now, this is a trend that I've been taking note of for quite a while, for decades, in fact. Think about LeBron James. He has 158 million Instagram followers. He has 50 million followers on X. He hasn't needed a beat reporter from a local newspaper to tell his story for decades. He hasn't even needed a national reporter from ESPN to do that, for that matter. There's also somebody like Travis Kelsey. He can reach more people with the New Heights podcast that he does with his brother, Jason, than from any traditional media.

3:21These are really powerful vehicles. And what the USC study shows is that these examples go well beyond just the most recognizable basketball player on the planet or a tight end who married the biggest pop star on earth. I mean, here are a couple stats from the study. Athlete-owned podcasts have amassed more than 7 billion views on YouTube. Billion with a B. 725 million likes on TikTok, and 37 million Instagram followers. Athlete-owned media already is a multi-billion dollar business, and per the study, it's poised to grow. Consider this, only 22 % of the top athlete-owned podcasts that were analyzed by USC featured any women as hosts or guests.

4:07There's a lot of room for growth. Willow Bay is the dean of the USC Annenberg School, And she pointed out correctly that athlete-owned media is rebalancing power and reshaping culture. Here's what she said. Understanding this shift is critical as we witness the growth of the sports media industry and the reshaping of sports storytelling in real time. This isn't a trend anymore. It's really happening. My puck colleague Julia Alexander is going to have a lot more on this in Tuesday's edition of the Varsity Private Email. But for now, let's get to Frank DeGrasse and Noah Eagle. Well, we're about a week away from the start of the NBA season, and NBC is coming back in to carry NBC games.

4:53So we got two of the head honchos from NBC, Noah Eagle, who is going to be doing play-by-play, and Frank DeGrasse, who is the coordinating producer for these games, and really is the guy responsible for putting together the talent and the vision behind how NBC is going to produce these games. And so, Frank, I want to come to you first because you spent 25 years with the Nets producing games for Yes Network. I looked this up. The worst records in the NBA since the year 2000. My Wizards are number one, or I guess number 30, whatever it is. The Wizards have the worst record of all NBA teams. The Nets, you oversaw a lot of losses there.

5:39I can imagine when NBC called you up to talk, you jumped at the chance. You were like, I got to get out of here. John, first of all, thank you so much for having me. It made the seasons when we were very good that much more exciting. that's the honest answer but I and Eagle and myself have been together the entire time and we both just took it one game at a time every night you're zero and zero what's the best show we can do how are you going to entertain and inform and you never know what's going to happen so even in those losing seasons we'd have great moments like Devin Harris half court buzzer beater became the first game in NBA history where the referees went to replay, which was our truck at the time, and overturned a call from no good to good back in 2009.

6:33So you just had to be ready at all times. And that's what I'm bringing forward to NBC. So take me through, just personally, you obviously were seeing that Amazon was getting involved, that NBC was getting involved, and you have these longtime partners in ESPN and Turner, that now you have new opportunities. How did this opportunity to join NBC come about for you? It's exactly that, Opportunity Met experience. Obviously, I had a longtime connection with the NBA, Greg Winnick, Paul Benedict, and the broadcasting department. So to have them on my side was really instrumental. Rick Cordella, the president, and Sam Flood, the executive producer, Sam gave me a call and said, we want you to join the team.

7:20And it was pretty as simple as that. I mean, I found right away that a lot of the production principles that I had through the years covering the Nets matched up really well with everything that NBC is all about. The storytelling and the excitement of they know how to do big events. But Sam said to me, we need someone who can translate the NBA to that. So from day one, I just thought it was a perfect match and I can't wait to get started. no i want to throw the uh uh noah eagle of course has been doing nfl game you've been sort of doing a master of all trades at since your time at nbc you saw that nbc got the nba did you reach out and say like i want to do those games i mean you've done clippers games i know for for the radio uh or did they approach you or was it just sort of like an understood like this was going to be an opportunity for you?

8:18Yeah, I would say that after doing the Olympics in 2024 in Paris, it was a natural transition. It was around that time when the rights were officially secured. Actually, I think it was while we were in Paris when the deal was struck. And so being there and kind of being already at that event, it made it very simple. I'd already been doing Big Ten basketball the year prior. We added some Big East basketball last year, including the Big East tournament. So I'd done a lot of basketball within the NBC family. And then, as you mentioned, four years as the radio voice of the Clippers. The last two years as one of the fill-ins with the Brooklyn Nets working with Frank.

8:55So I think a lot of it was just easy in terms of sliding over to that chair. But for me personally, the reaction was ecstatic because the NBA was a passion of mine from a very young age. Being around my dad, who was with the Nets, with Frank, and going to games when I was so young that most people would say they couldn't remember. I do vividly remember sitting in Continental Airlines Arena with the ground shaking after Reggie Miller, our now colleague, hit a half-court buzzer beater and banked it in to send a game to overtime and a winner-take-all game five, or being there when Dwayne Wade and Shaquille O 'Neal came in with a Miami Heat and looking around and feeling an energy I had never felt before.

9:36And then you mentioned some of those brutal seasons. I was there for when they were 12 and 70. I mean, Frank could probably attest, I think I probably went to 15 home games that year. I'm that level of a basketball sicko, as they call it. And so for me, we needed you as a seatbelt. Yes, you were seatbelt for us. So 12 and 70, that season, I think I was probably around 13 years old, 14 years old. And so I would go to the game and I'd be sitting way back, road 25, let's call it. And they would send somebody up about midway through the first or second quarter and say, Mr. Eagle, would you like to come sit courtside?

10:13And I'd be like, yeah, of course I would. And so I would go down to sit courtside because they needed that exterior filled. So I was at those games. And for me to now be a part of it full time on an entity like NBA on NBC, which is what really helped set the foundation of my sports fandom is pretty special. Noah, do you have an earliest basketball memory, NBA memory? It would be hard not to say that Game 5, the Pacers and Nets, that's definitely up there. And I think I can start really pinpointing things from about then, that 2002 and 2003 runs. I went to almost every home playoff game for the Nets as they went to the NBA Finals in those back-to-back years.

10:52And I would say I do remember my mom and I would go together. I don't know what my sister is two years younger than me. Because at that time, 0-2, during that run, I think I was five years old, turning six later that year. So my sister was three years old and stayed at home with a babysitter. My mom and I would go to the home games. And I do remember there was one in particular where we were sitting and we were behind somebody who was another couple of kids. And they were wearing this NBA Finals specific Jason Kidd jersey. And it was white on the front and gold on the back for the Larry O 'Brien trophy.

11:29And I was like, man, where did we went up to them? We said, where'd you get that? They go, we got it from the store over there. So my mom and I marched right over there and got the same jersey. And I had that thing for years, probably until Jason left the team several years after that. But yeah, a lot of those early Nets teams. I remember going on the court after a playoff game and I had one of those mini basketballs that you would get. It was a Nets branded small basketball. And I would just chuck it at the basket. And one of them went in. But because it was so small, it got caught in the netting.

12:00And so I'm standing there and I'm saying, man, what's happening? Like, what do I do now? I'm five years old. I can't reach that. And Todd McCullough or McCullough, depending on who you ask, and Frank could provide more context on that, but starting center on the team came back out after showering and he saw I was struggling. He goes, oh, let me get that. He's seven feet tall and just knocked it out for me and handed it right back to me. So a lot of those types where the New Jersey Nets were helping to form a lot of my early sports memories for sure. So Frank, I have a question for you. NBC, their run with the NBA is iconic.

12:38It's through the 90s. They documented the Jordan era, the Tesh intro and all of that. Still, that was 25 years ago. And how are you planning to weave that sort of history in with today's game and what you do today? it's it's actually exactly that it's a touch of nostalgia but also paying it forward uh today obviously everyone wants to hear john tesch and that song is iconic and it will be a big part of our broadcast um and the laser birds at the beginning and and all all that stuff so for the for the nostalgia it's going to be there but then we're also moving forward with a brand new talent combinations with 1080p HDR camera videos and super slow-mo.

13:33So the new technology, Skycam, all that stuff, the new technology will become part of these games, which obviously they didn't have back in the 90s. But we've all been watching all the old clips. We've all been looking at what they did. What did we like? What can we do better? And I think it's just going to be every night a little bit, a nice little marriage of a nod to the past, but still also looking forward. In terms of attracting talent and bringing talent in, I want to ask what you're looking for, but you know what I'm even more interested in? What weren't you looking for? What did you not want for new talent to come in?

14:08It was a combination. It's not just myself, obviously. Sam Flood led the charge as the executive producer on that. Elise Noonan is our talent coordinator. I mean, we interviewed over 80 candidates for these jobs and everybody's reaction at the same time is like as same as mine. NBC. Oh, my gosh. This is awesome. Right. How do you not look at NBC sports with the Olympics and Kentucky Derby and Sunday Night Football, which is the, you know, the premier sports production on television today? I think the first thing we just went for was, are you a good person? right that's always the foundation uh are you a nice guy can you be a good teammate how will you work together and a lot of the biggest names are fine with that because they were on teams they were teammates they know how to lead they know how to bring their own individual style but they also know how to get together i mean grant hill i was talking about uh his travel and he was like whatever you want frank i'm a rookie here and i'm like no you're grant hill you're not rookie here.

15:14So that's what we were looking for right from the beginning. Are you a nice person? Will you be a good teammate? And we are so excited for everyone on our team. We're going, you know, we're going four crews deep, John. We're going to have six games in three days. And in a lot of these situations, guys are doing back to back. So it was real important to have depth. And I'm real excited to get started with this group. That's pretty obvious to tell from the way that you're answering these questions. Let me take a quick break. And then I, I do want to start to get into like some of the differences between NBC and Peacock and sort of how you're viewing these different games.

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17:01You're going to have games on NBC, the broadcast network, that also will be on Peacock, of course. but you are going to have Peacock exclusive games. Are they all going to have the same look and feel? Yes and no, right. They're all going to have the same foundation, but we do want each night of the week to be a little bit different. So Sunday night basketball, which doesn't start till February is going to be like Sunday night football. We just announced it's going to have a big musical act. Lenny Kravitz to start the show, just like Carrie Underwood does for football. It's going to have a three-person booth that night with Mike Tirico, Reggie Miller, Jamal Crawford.

17:41So it's going to be a big game playoff type feel every Sunday night. Tuesday night, prime time, it's a split audience in the fact that on 8 o 'clock Eastern and Central, you're going to get one game. At 8 o 'clock Pacific, you're going to get another game. You want the true old school doubleheader, you're going to get that on Peacock. Every single game is on Peacock. But that's a primetime event. That will be OG. It'll be what you're used to seeing and just the standard NBC high-level production. Monday's Peacock, yeah, a little bit different. We know that it's going to be a younger audience who's streaming nowadays.

18:18It might be a little different on the John Tesh part of it. But the biggest thing that Sam Flood invented, he invented behind the glass for hockey, and we're going on the bench for one of the Peacock games every night where we're going to put an analyst on this bench side, right next to the bench in those Hollywood seats. One per team is the really other part of this that's really unique and I don't think has ever been done before in basketball. So one analyst is going to look through the lens of one team and then the other analyst is going to look through the lens of the other team and they're going to get insight and access and try to bring the fans a little bit closer.

18:58And Noah, we had proof of concept, right? We've tested this out already. What did you think of on the bench? How do you think that's going to go? Yeah, we tried it out in San Francisco, John, during NBA Summer League there. It was a game between the Miami Heat and the Golden State Warriors. And it was myself for one half. Michael Grady did another half. And then the analysts were Robbie Hummel and Austin Rivers, who are going to be a part of the first one that we do in a couple weeks. And they were parked on either side. And honestly, it was way smoother than I expected it to be. I think I had some trepidation.

19:28I think they did as well, of not being next to each other and having the nonverbal cues and showcasing with pointing and motioning and things like that. But what we recognized is because I was directly across the court at the broadcast table and they were directly across on their benches, the eye contact was still good enough that we could motion to one another if need be. And I think the special part of it was because they are so seasoned in terms of their playing and knowledge of the game, they would go to the huddles during timeouts, things of that nature, and they would get intimate information.

20:04But sometimes, and there was a specific example that we used where I tossed over to Robbie Hummel after a Miami Heat timeout and said, hey, Robbie, what did you hear during that timeout? And he goes, well, there was a lot that I heard. They drew up a set. I don't want to give away the state secret, so to speak, but if I were a viewer at home, I would look down low in the post right now. And sure enough, they ran this set. Eventually, they got a post up on the right side of the block. And that was exactly what he was pointing to. So I think that's the type of stuff where instead of on the back end during a replay, you're saying, hey, this is what they did.

20:37You can kind of tee up the viewer ahead of time so they know exactly where to look before play. So did Robbie handle that the way that you want him to? Or would you rather just say, like, you know, this is going to go into the post? No, I think that's kind of what you want is, hey, there's something special that's about to happen here, something that they're trying to get to, because then if it doesn't work, then you can explain why it didn't work and explain ahead of time, this is what they tried after the fact, this is why I got blown up. I think it's just a little bit further than just saying I expect them to throw it into the post, because anybody can say that.

21:11Now you have a specific and explicit reason as to why. I think he handled it great. Right. And so this is not in-game interviews, which some viewers, myself included, don't like. And some viewers like the access. This is an analyst that's just sitting right next to the players and right next to the coaches. Absolutely. Yeah. The other part that I think we liked was the fact that you are parking. And this was really how Frank has helped to develop it along with Sam. But you're parking each analyst on either side. And so each team feels like they're probably getting a little bit more in-depth analysis about their specific team.

21:48Would you agree, Frank? Absolutely. And part of it, too, is that there's a lot of messaging that goes on with these teams. So to have people who've played in the NBA on that side, one, they can actually decipher it a little bit better when they're saying we need to blue on the pick and roll and ice and all their terminology. they can help explain that on the air for us in layman's terms. And then it's also to get the team's message out. Every team has a message and they're dying to put it out there. So for us, it's through the lens of the coach and what they're trying to do. What really sparked me on the trial run that we did is that these guys picked up real quickly.

22:30So Noah had like nonverbal cues and he'd say Miami's struggling right now. And Austin Rivers knew how to jump in right there. And then there was a one play where Robbie started it because it was his team's play, but then Austin jumped to the defensive side of the ball. So I just think it's a really exciting, new, different way to cover the NBA, to be honest with you. And like I said, we're doing it once a week. We're doing it on Mondays. And we want to make that game just as special as Sunday and Tuesday. Can't you foresee NFL coaches are unique, but NBA coaches still, they want to keep a measure of control.

23:06Are you prepared to piss off some of these coaches and players? That's too strong. That's too strong. We've learned with it. My words, my words. A guy that went to Maryland in the 1980s says that's too strong. Come on. Terps rubber, baby. Everything that we found out in this new venture with the league. first of all, their message is to educate and to innovate. And we're thinking we're doing that. But 10 coaches were all in right away. 10 are like, oh, let me see what's happening. And then 10 are like, I don't know. And those are the ones where they had to win over. But we went to Summer League, Noah, myself, Pierre Moussa, our coordinating director, and we pitched everybody and it seemed to go over well.

23:59And now as we're getting there or closer and we're picking the seats and teams are actually buying into our vision, they're getting into it. So Frank, you said something interesting earlier where you referenced Peacock and sort of you get younger viewers to watch Peacock and obviously streaming brings in younger viewers. And that's an issue that the NBA, you hear at the NBA all the time. You hear it at all the leagues. the NBA wants younger fans. And beyond just sort of sending them to a different platform, we're going to get younger fans at Peacock. What is it that you can do from a television production standpoint to try to draw in younger fans?

24:44And Noah, it's the same question to you almost too, if you even think about that as a play-by-play guy. I'll say, John, it's funny though you say that because we have a broadcasting seminar every year and the league does a great job of presenting their messages and all their research. And they actually say that we have the youngest fans if you compare us to all the sports. I think I'm a little uniquely qualified for this because I have teenagers, twins that are freshmen in college and another guy in high school. And I'm watching them watch games and consume games and they care about individual players.

25:22And I think that's this generation. So how can we, it's always been a thing, right? The stars are the stars, but how can we keep them engaged with the individual players while still telling the story of the game? So they also like the bells and whistles, right? So how does the graphics look? How does the camera looks? The replays in our graphic package led by Trip Dixon and Chad Hudson is absolutely spectacular. And I can't wait to show it off to the world. So I think it's a little bit of both. It sounds to me like the brands for you are less Lakers, Knicks, Celtics, and more like, you know, Jokic or, you know, some of the players that are out there and Bede.

26:02Those are the first two to come out to my head. Yeah, no doubt. It's a star-driven league. It always has been going back to NBC and NBA in the 90s. So, yeah, no, that's definitely a thing. Noah, your thoughts? Yeah, I think that's all very accurate. For me personally, in terms of what happens when the red light comes on and we're on the air, I think a lot of it comes back to, and this is something my dad always stressed to me, and I thought something he's done incredibly well throughout his entire career and keeps getting better and better, it's relatability to all groups. You want to welcome in groups that are six years old, and you want to welcome in groups that are 76 years old.

26:42You just don't really know who's watching, and so how do you do that? and his mentality has always been, and it's something he passed to me and I've tried to pass down to younger broadcasters that reach out for advice. If you're a more well-rounded person, then you can be a well-rounded broadcaster. And when you're well-rounded, you can relate to people of all different ages, backgrounds and whatever else might come into play. So for me, it's about staying up to date on a lot of trends, making sure that I'm up to date on television and movies and music and social media fads and any of that stuff, because you just never quite know when you can weave that in very naturally.