Source for the statistics about the announcers: https://thehill.com/changing-america/enrichment/arts-culture/562133-nba-commentators-racial-bias-is-showing-according-to/
Why is it that most of the players in the league are black but most of the voices commentating on the games over the airways are white?
It’s because we have a bias toward white voices and white-sounding people. We don’t want a “black-sounding voice” commentating on our basketball even though that would be more representative of the league today. Most of the black people who commentate games are color commentators rather than play-by-play. They provide the “basketball knowledge” while the white play-by-play man is the voice we want on the big moments. For some reason, the voices of Kevin Harlan, Mike Breen, and Marv Albert feel right to us. We say that they just have the “right voice for announcing.” But do we realize that when we imagine the “right voice for announcing” it’s basically always a white cis-man’s voice in our head? That’s what represents gravitas and dignity for us. Even black announcers like Mark Jones clearly have to whitewash their voices in order to be fit for the American airways
I think we would all benefit if we were more mindful of this disparity and found ways to give more of the radio and television jobs to black people, until the distribution matches that of the league.
OP ignoring that once you get a good gig (which is super fucking hard) in Sports Broadcasting you are likely to never give up that position.
Relating the percentage of black players to announcers doesn’t really work because most announcers aren’t former players. Now color commentators is a little different, but announcers usually come from Communications/Journalism backgrounds.
It probably should be higher just in general based on general demographics, but like most things there’s a whole lot of factors that play a part, not just related to race.
Any gymnastic to avoid the truth.
Hb this
Name as many poc protags as you can, and I bet I can name 5x more white protags
Cause there’s 5 times as many white people than poc in the US?
92% of radio and television announcers are white yet only 27% of NBA players are white,
This is not talked about enough as a manifestation of subconscious racial bias in the league.
White people have a systemic advantage over black people in this country. I think we can agree on that
If there’s a profession where black people make up the majority of the elites, then it’s probably not going to be because they received an unfair advantage or because the system was oppressing the white people. It’s likely to be because of other factors like culture. Why? Because black people don’t have a systemic advantage over whites in this country, so that cannot be the reason
If there’s a profession where white people make up the majority of the elites, especially in a field that is majority black, then it’s much much more likely that the white structural advantage that we’ve proven exists in so many other fields is playing itself out in exactly the same way in that field
Why would we presume that there is white structural advantage in all these other fields (STEM, medicine, politics, etc.) but NOT in broadcasting which is EVEN WHITER than those other fields?
Playing in the league is strictly performance based.
Sports media is rife with nepotism, favoritism and racism.
Go home nephew.
100% of white people are white, this is insane discrimination we aren’t talking about
Why is this not down voted.
Everything pro black and down with the white in 2023 is upvoted, thanks to propaganda and people being racist sheep
Shut up
Nah makes sense, most of the audience is white, need relatable ways of talking and connecting. It’s pure business.
It’s unlikely to see 2 black commentators as well, unless they were players. And even then, only certain kinds of players get the call. The media trained types. It’s a black league, and to make money the nba needs to make it as palatable as possible to non blacks, so everyone makes money.
Why does race matter? What’s wrong with more white people announcing games? There are more white people than black people in America. Obviously at almost every job, there will be more white people than any other race. Why do you want to divide everyone?
The US is 60% white
NBA viewership is only 40% white (there are more black viewers at 45%)
There’s no way that should translate to 92% of announcers being white
Please learn how to troll better, OP.
Interesting post. I hadn’t thought about this before but you’re definitely right. Let’s change it!
thank you!
Go outside loser
Find other pearls to clutch.
I think it would be interesting to see the percentage of black people going into broadcasting majors compared to white people.
Also, not fair to say Mark Jones “clearly has to whitewash” his voice. Did he admit to that? Is that on record somewhere? To me, he sounds like Mark Jones and no one in the industry sounds like him.
He sounds the same when speaking off camera or off the job. He didn’t codeswitch when he was on a “black” podcast. He sounded like Mark Jones.
What the hell does “black” sound like anyways? If someone doesn’t sound like your idea of black does that make them less black or whitewashed?
The website reddit dot come will definitely be receptive to this.
There definitely won’t be any immediate lashing out from white people about their potential biases.
Nope.
If anything nba is highly disproportionately black based on statistics so IDK what dumbass point you’re trying to to make.
Tf this have to do about race?
If black dudes wanna commentate they will, if black dudes wanna ref they will.