As previously mentioned, TBS obtained rights to air NBA games beginning with the 1984–1985 season[7] (replacing the ESPN and USA Network as the National Basketball Association's national cable partners) in which TBS shared the NBA television package along with CBS. For instance, CBS aired Games 1–3 of the 1981 Western Conference Finals, between the Houston Rockets and Kansas City Kings. Notably, Game 5 of the 1989 playoff series between the Chicago Bulls and Cleveland Cavaliers (featuring Michael Jordan's now famous game winning, last second shot over Craig Ehlo) was not nationally televised. All the players actually...fired the imagination not only for an entire generation of NBA fans but for all of us at CBS. 5 patch in his honor, and it was retired permanently. 1984 featured an increase to 47 nationally televised playoff time slots (43 national games plus 8 regional games in four windows).
In the summer of 1987, the Turner Broadcasting System signed a new joint broadcast contract between TBS and TNT[11][12] effective with the 1988–89 NBA season; beginning that season, TBS and TNT split broadcast rights to televise NBA games. It seems unthinkable now, but from 1979-1981, © 2013-2018 classicTVsports.com ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
CBS wanted the Pacific teams to advance in the playoffs so that they could show live games at 11:30 p.m. on the Eastern U.S.; however, the Los Angeles Lakers and Portland Trail Blazers were upset in Round 1, while the Phoenix Suns were upset in Round 2. I remember watching it in a bar and I would have NEVER watched a game like that a bar if I could have watched it in my house ( which most likely didn't have cable yet). For the 1980 and 1981 NBA Finals, CBS scheduled Games 3 and 4 on back-to-back days (Saturday and Sunday) to avoid an extra tape delay game.
At the time of the final, Hillman's rights had been traded to the New York Nets, but he had not yet signed a contract. During this period, CBS' NBA coverage was the beneficiary of a new era in the league that would forever link two of the game's greatest players, Larry Bird and Magic Johnson. During this era, CBS aired weeknight playoff games from earlier rounds on tape delay[15] at 11:30 p.m. Eastern Time (airing games live when the game site was in the Pacific Time Zone). The 1976 NBA Finals had three straight off days between the Sunday afternoon opener and Game 2 the following Thursday night due to CBS' concern with low ratings for professional basketball. As cable & technology in general progressed, tape delays ended. [91] This opening melody (mostly consisting of an uptempo series of four notes and three bars each) from 1983 to 1988 was composed by Allyson Bellink[92] and is generally considered to be the most familiar theme music that The NBA on CBS used.
|, See All Trivia, Notes, Quotes and Allusions, Please read the following before uploading. Visser became the first female NBA beat writer in 1976, when she was assigned to cover the Boston Celtics. Elgin Baylor was an analyst during CBS' inaugural year in 1973–1974, and was fired during that year's playoffs due to what CBS considered a lackluster performance.
As an experiment of sorts, the network decided to air the first two games of the Conference Finals at 11:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time.
This meant that he wanted more than 15 games a year shown on network television. Perhaps even more confusing, both Game 5 sites (Coliseum at Richfield in Cleveland and Omni Coliseum in Atlanta) were in the Eastern Time Zone, so differing local start times were not a factor.
The Lakers and Celtics, two iconic teams in large television markets, rose to prominence during the period; many credit the theatrics of Bird and Johnson to boosting the overall popularity of the NBA (especially during the tape delay era of NBA telecasts). Definitely a black eye on the NBA's part. However, Maravich was injured and unavailable, so CBS instead had Westphal shoot a free-throw against "Bag-Man" (who was actually Rick Barry, who was on the announcing team, wearing a paper sack over his head). Within three years of Johnson and Bird entering the league, the NBA had a Game of the Week on CBS, and ratings for Finals games approached levels rivaling those of the World Series. In the 1975–76 season, CBS had asked the NBA to schedule both games on January 25, so they could choose which one to televise. [10][11][12] Among the criticisms included CBS playing too much loud music, the lack of stability with the announcers,[13] regionalizing telecasts (thus fragmenting the ratings even further), billing games as being between star players[14] instead of teams, and devoting too much attention to the slam dunk in instant replays. In 1987, CBS provided prime time coverage for Game 6 of the Eastern Conference Finals, marking the network's first pre-Finals prime time playoff telecast since 1975.
If the affiliate chose to air the game later that night, then the prime time schedule would consist of reruns of The Incredible Hulk, The Dukes of Hazzard and Dallas (CBS, NBC and ABC ended the 1979–80 seasons in late March and early April in anticipation of a strike by the Screen Actors Guild, which came to fruition in July 1980). With the Finals starting a week later, the awkward long pauses between Games 1 and 2 were no longer required. Just like the previous year, CBS scheduled Games 3 and 4 of the NBA Finals without an off-day to avoid yet another tape delayed game. As a result, CBS used to regularly run NBA games in the 11:30 p.m. time slot (then occupied by The CBS Late Movie). Since he was not officially a member of any NBA team, instead of wearing a jersey, he competed in a plain white tank top. The Portland Oregonian criticized CBS for its decision to show the Game 1 of the second round Seattle-Lakers series in Portland on KOIN rather than that game.
When it came time for CBS to broadcast Game 6 of the 1980 Finals (on Friday, May 16), the network gave its affiliates the option of either airing the game live or on tape delay (in fact, WAGA-TV[29] in Atlanta [home of the Hawks, and now a Fox owned-and-operated station] did not carry the NBA on CBS for numerous years).
Instead, CBS started airing several West Coast games at 11:30 p.m. Eastern Time. Other adjustments that CBS made in hopes of improving its coverage included hiring reporter Sonny Hill to cover the league on a full-time basis. Finishing 16–66, the Detroit Pistons suffer the worst NBA record since the infamous 1972–73 76ers won only nine games. Finally, CBS introduced a halftime segment called Red Auerbach on Roundball, featuring the Hall of Fame Boston Celtics coach. That meant that the Finals in those years began in the first week of May rather than the end of May, and as a result, the weeknight games were played during May ratings sweeps. CBS broadcast a Christmas Day game each year from 1975 to 1989 with the exception of 1982. CBS, anxious for star power, also gave David Thompson the opportunity to be eliminated three times.[14][15]. |, See All Trivia, Notes, Quotes and Allusions, The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story, Please read the following before uploading. TBS also carried numerous NBA Playoff games as well as the NBA Draft[9][10] from 1985–1989. Prior to the Bird/Magic era, CBS used to televise approximately five to seven games regionally per week in a doubleheader format (1:45 and 4:00 p.m. Eastern Time) on Sundays.
Starting in 1977, CBS used an alternate opening showing a montage of still pictures of current NBA star athletes with music (similar to the music used by the network for its NFL coverage at that time) accompanying it.
The 1995 playoffs marked the first time that every NBA postseason game was televised nationally.
[86] O'Brien, working with analyst Bill Raftery, also hosted the Prudential At The Half. By the end of its coverage, CBS' NBA ratings had been mostly respectable, with the lowest-rated Final after 1982 scoring a 12.3 (three times), a mark higher than any NBA Final since 1998. NBA entered the cable territory in 1979 when USA Network signed a three-year $1.5 million deal and extended for two years until the 1983-84 season , ESPN also had a brief affair with NBA from 1982 to 1984 .
[16] Other players to compete in the slam dunk tournament included Julius Erving, George Gervin, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Moses Malone. All through the 1980s when CBS broadcast NBA basketball games on Sunday afternoons, those games were pretty much a no-show in the Carolinas.
Because of this, instead of Game 2 of the Finals being shown on the first night after sweeps ended, CBS could show Game 6 of the Conference Finals. Meanwhile, CBS televised about 16 playoff games. Learn how and when to remove this template message, National Basketball Association on television, List_of_NBA_All-Star_Game_broadcasters#1970s, "There's An Ill Wind Blowing for the NBA", "5 LOW POINTS IN THE HISTORY OF THE NBA ON TV", https://web.archive.org/web/20130817193600/http://etd.fcla.edu/UF/amd0039/thesis.pdf, "The NBA on CBS late night and tape delay playoff era", "The Victoria Advocate - Google News Archive Search", "Enjoying 'Mile High' should be a slam dunk", List of current National Basketball Association broadcasters, Historical NBA over-the-air television broadcasters, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=NBA_on_television_in_the_1970s&oldid=962604599, National Basketball Association on television history, Articles with dead external links from June 2016, Articles lacking in-text citations from August 2019, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. CBS aired NBA games from the 1973–74 NBA season[1] (when it succeeded ABC Sports[2] as the national broadcaster of the NBA) until the 1989–90 NBA season (when CBS was succeeded by NBC Sports). CBS also put microphones and cameras on team huddles to allow viewers to see and hear coaches at work. In the 1982–83 season, CBS significantly reduced the number of regular season broadcasts from 18 to four. 1986 Philadelphia 76ers @ Boston Celtics 1/26/86 Barkley+ Bird= Big games! CBS wanted the NBA to start Game 6 of the Finals at 10:30 local time on Sunday morning to accommodate a golf telecast of the Kemper Open (similar to 1976). My family got cable in 1983.USA Network had some really crazy blackout rules for NBA and MLB baseball.Some games 600 miles away not involving any Ohio teams would be blacked out. At the time of the final, Hillman's rights had been traded to the New York Nets, but he had not yet signed a contract. Also in 1986, CBS provided regional coverage of the Eastern Conference and Western Conference Finals games on May 18.
CBS would reserve a playoff game with an early start (such as Game 6 of the Eastern Conference Finals) for tape delay, preventing USA Network from televising it live. On May 12, 1985, during halftime of the Boston Celtics–Philadelphia 76ers playoff game, CBS televised the first ever NBA Draft Lottery. In 1980, USA televised two NBA games on Christmas Day. In 1987, the slam dunk contest was televised live for the very first time on the network.
Westphal, with a bag over his head as well, made the free throw while Barry missed, and CBS awarded him the trophy.
Ratings fell to a level where, as mentioned before, CBS began airing games on tape delay.
CBS did not want sportscasters to give the final score on the late-evening newscasts aired by its local affiliates.
As previously mentioned, this was the last time that any NBA Conference Finals game was not nationally televised. Finally, CBS introduced a halftime segment called Red Auerbach on Roundball, featuring the Hall of Fame Boston Celtics coach.
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