Recreation 6 of the Jap Convention Finals marked greater than the tip of the Knicks’ season.
It additionally marked the tip of an period for TNT Sports activities.
Saturday night time’s 125-108 win by the Indiana Pacers was the ultimate sport broadcast by TNT, whose TV cope with the NBA is ready to run out.
The rights to air NBA video games within the U.S. will belong to ESPN/ABC; NBC Sports activities/Peacock; and Amazon Prime Video subsequent season and past.
Longtime “Inside the NBA” host Ernie Johnson choked again tears Saturday as he signed off on behalf of TNT for the final time.
“If I had written the script, the NBA and TNT would be together forever,” Johnson stated in the course of the postgame present from Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis. “It’s not gonna happen. But while I was disappointed and I was sad, I was not bitter. We know how business works. Gratitude is the operative word for me.”
TNT started broadcasting NBA video games in 1989, the identical yr it launched its “Inside the NBA” studio present.
Subsequent season, “Inside the NBA” will transfer to ESPN/ABC, with the panel of Johnson, Charles Barkley, Kenny Smith and Shaquille O’Neal remaining intact.
The Emmy-winning “Inside the NBA” has featured that very same lineup since 2011, when O’Neal joined the present, and is famend for its mix of research and humor.
“Even though the name changes, the engine is still the same,” O’Neal stated throughout Saturday’s postgame present. “And to that new network we’re coming to, we’re not coming to eff round. And since it’s the last show, I’m gonna say it: We’re not coming to f— around. … We’re taking over, OK? I love you guys and I appreciate you guys.”
ESPN holds the rights to the NBA Finals, making the Jap Convention Finals the final task for TNT.
Kevin Harlan, Reggie Miller, Stan Van Gundy and Allie LaForce known as the collection between the Knicks and Pacers.
“I’m very fortunate,” Miller stated Saturday. “I’ve only known two things: 18 years with one franchise in this building with the Indiana Pacers, and 19 years with Turner.”
Harlan and Van Gundy are set to name NBA video games for Amazon subsequent season, whereas Miller goes to NBC.
TNT Sports activities initially tried to flex a provision in its contract to match one of many different networks’ provides — reportedly Amazon’s. However TNT Sports activities’ father or mother firm, Warner Bros. Discovery, later agreed to an 11-year contract with the NBA that may enable the community to create, produce and distribute NBA content material and to broadcast video games exterior of the U.S.
That settlement paved the best way for TNT Sports activities to proceed to supply “Inside the NBA” by way of a partnership with ESPN.
A reside viewers at Gainbridge Fieldhouse chanted “TNT” as Johnson, Barkley, Smith and O’Neal bid farewell.
“I just want to thank every single person who’s been at Turner with me the last 25 years,” Barkley stated Saturday. “Twenty. Five. Years. … If you’re with people that long, they are your family.”
