ESPN’s Mike Breen rips the NBA for excluding local broadcasters from the playoffs

Mike Breen, the New York Knicks’ play-by-play announcer and NBA star with ESPN, isn’t happy with a move in a key league heading into the NBA Playoffs.

And he didn’t hold back his frustrations during the Knicks’ regular-season finale Sunday night.

For the first time in NBA history, all local network broadcasts are pushed out of the playoffs for nationally televised games. Those networks paid a premium to air the playoffs, but the league had always allowed the local home broadcast to air as well as the national television spots in previous seasons.

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Breen, along with his longtime partner, Knicks great Walt “Clyde” Frazier, ripped the league’s decision on the final day of his broadcast duties for the Eastern Conference squad.

“For the first time ever, the home team announcers and broadcasters can no longer air the first round,” Breen said during the 110-96 loss to the Charlotte Hornets while broadcasting on MSG.

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“The entire playoffs are exclusive to national broadcasters. I mentioned this earlier this season. Personally, Clyde, I think it’s a bad decision. Fans want to hear their home team’s announcers, at least in the first round. For so many of us, they become part of the family.”

Breen added that he understands “the networks pay a fortune for exclusivity,” given he works for one of those networks at ESPN.

“But fans deserve to be thrown a bone once in a while in terms of letting the home team get a little bit of the first round,” he continued.

The NBA reached a whopping $76 billion broadcast rights deal that started at the start of this season and will last for the next 11 seasons. Like other professional sports leagues, the deal is crafted across various platforms, both long-running networks and streaming.

ESPN play-by-play announcer Mike Breen calls the game between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Dallas Mavericks at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles, California on January 17, 2024. (Kirby Lee/USA TODAY Sports)

While the NBA got a deal it liked with Disney, Amazon and NBCUniversal, Breen hopes it would consider figuring out how to get local broadcasters back into the fold for the playoffs.

However, he knows how business is at the end of the day.

“Somehow, if there’s any way they can come up with some kind of compromise, I’m not hopeful for it, but it would be wonderful to have it because this is our last broadcast of the season,” Breen said.

Breen will now focus on his ESPN duties as lead commentator for the “Worldwide Leader” on the field. His famous “Bang!” call on clutch three-pointers have been synonymous with the biggest moments of the NBA Playoffs for years now, and it will start very soon as teams in both the East and West shoot their shots at the Larry O’Brien Trophy and call themselves NBA Finals champions.

The Oklahoma City Thunder, the reigning Finals champions, are once again the No. 1 seed in the Western Conference, while teams like the San Antonio Spurs, Denver Nuggets and Los Angeles Lakers will battle it out to be crowned conference champions.

Mike Breen looks on before the game between the Golden State Warriors and the Los Angeles Lakers during Round 2 Game 3 of the Western Conference Semi-Finals 2023 NBA Playoffs on May 6, 2023 at Crypto.Com Arena in Los Angeles, California. (Andrew D. Bernstein/NBAE/Getty Images)

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In the East, Breen’s Knicks own the No. 3 seed, while the Detroit Pistons (No. 1) and Boston Celtics (No. 2) had successful regular-season campaigns to earn a top seed heading into the playoffs.

The Play-In Tournament will be the first NBA Playoffs games to be streamed exclusively on Amazon Prime Video. After that, the first round will share its tipoffs on NBC/Peacock, Prime Video and ESPN.