There’s been a lot of recent debate about ESPN/ABC’s production of the NBA Finals. Well, that game production will be in new hands next year, with this marking Tim Corrigan’s 18th (more than anyone else) and last Finals as producer. Corrigan will be moving to a role as senior vice president of sports production, overseeing all of ESPN’s NBA and WNBA coverage year-round.
Corrigan’s tenure as lead producer has seen a lot of different moments, including on the game broadcast team. Play-by-play voice Mike Breen has been a constant on the ESPN/ABC lead NBA broadcast team (Breen is calling his 20th straight Finals this year, so he even predates Corrigan on these broadcasts), but the analysts went from Jeff Van Gundy and Mark Jackson for the first 15 years to Doris Burke and Doc Rivers (2023-24 season, with JJ Redick replacing Rivers that January and working the Finals) to Burke and Richard Jefferson this past season. In comments to Tom Friend of Sports Business Journal this week, Corrigan had a lot of praise for Burke:
“Nobody belonged in that chair more than she did,” he said. “Her doing the first Finals last year, I think that was probably my favorite moment with her. Because as we sat down to do it, our conversation with Doris was ‘You know what, the great thing for you is you’re not walking into the stage unfamiliar with how big it is. Because you’ve been here with us in a different role, and now you’re walking into the stage understanding all that. So that’s not going to intimidate you and sitting there to call the game shouldn’t intimidate you either. Everything you did to get here was deserved, and you’re the one who kicked down all the walls.’”
In another interview with Mike Berardino of The South Bend Tribune, Corrigan covered a lot (including thoughts on his older brother Kevin, Notre Dame’s lacrosse coach), but had some particularly notable thoughts on those various analysts:
“Mark (Jackson) and Jeff (Van Gundy) are two guys who I will always admire, and the relationship we have and all the things I learned from them about leadership. Mark is a point guard, man, in every sense of the word. He walks in a room and sees everything and feels that and he’s used to having the ball in his hands and making decisions. We really hit it off from the beginning about that.
“Doris (Burke), a Hall of Famer. No one has kicked down more doors and earned — and I mean earned — everything she’s gotten. To be doing this with Doris now is an absolute thrill for me, for Mike, for all of us because we’re just so proud of her and so thrilled with how good she is at her job.
“Whether it was Doc (Rivers) coming through or JJ (Redick), who was a blast to work with, and now Richard (Jefferson), who is an emerging star in this television space in ways beyond just calling games, you ultimately get close because you work with people in really interesting, intense, highs/lows moments. But then you spend a lot of time in between that together. We’ve all really enjoyed each other. It’s just been a real pleasure.”
There have been lots of other changes to ESPN on ABC NBA coverage during Corrigan’s time in this role. He’s been at ESPN overall since 1987, but has been leading their NBA production since 2007-08 before January’s announcement that he’ll shift to this overall role of NBA and WNBA oversight (part of larger changes to ESPN’s corporate structure). And ESPN’s coverage has changed in many notable ways since then, including with dramatic changes around the 2020 bubble, with a 2022 overhaul of their graphics and music packages, and with former director Jimmy Moore retiring three years ago and being replaced by Mike Schwab. But Corrigan told Jason Dachman of Sports Video Group this week that their overall focus has remained the same despite changes with personnel and technology (in comments starting around 2:40 here):
“It’s funny, because a lot of the core parts of it with those Lakers and Celtics teams versus the Thunder and Pacers teams tonight, and the core values that those coaches believe in, we believe in from a production standpoint. From how we document the event to how we frame our cameras, what our intentionality is with everything we’re doing, with every element that goes into this show, and making sure it’s literally the best thing we can possibly do at that time, that still maintains everything we’ve done from Day 1, and how we’re very intentional in what we’re doing and why we’re doing it, and putting the game first, because the documentation of that event has to be first.
“…The transition for us, I think, is much more on the technology front of things we can do now that we couldn’t do then, with high frame rates, extra motion, SkyCams, shallow-depth cams, things like that that we bring that can give a little more of a cinematic feel to the overall production of what we’re doing. It’s those things as much as anything else. But I think our core values of the documentation of the event first were the priority then and will be the priority as long as we’re doing this, because it’s all about the game.”
Those are interesting comments from Corrigan. They’re especially noteworthy in an environment where many critics of the current state of ESPN/ABC NBA coverage have cited network personalities, especially Stephen A. Smith, Pat McAfee, and Kendrick Perkins as making the Finals about themselves rather than the game. Now, many of those comments have come on ESPN’s daily multi-sports shows rather than the game broadcasts, so they’re not particularly under Corrigan’s current or upcoming purview (which will cover ESPN NBA and WNBA game and studio production), but some of the broadcasts’ halftime and postgame shows have taken criticism along similar lines as well.
We’ll see how much the ESPN/ABC NBA coverage changes next year. They’ll have a new producer in the truck to replace Corrigan, and Corrigan will be taking on other responsibility with added oversight for NBA studio shows (and also WNBA games and studio shows). They’ll also be bringing in Inside The NBA under a licensing agreement from TNT Sports, but that show will still originate from TNT’s Atlanta studios and will have its own TNT production staff. It will be interesting to observe how all of that gets integrated (many details remain to be seen), and what changes Corrigan and the new lead game producer make to the direct ESPN/ABC coverage.