It’s rare when an athlete is seen as a shoo-in to make a successful transition from professional athlete to television analyst. Former Duke star and NBA veteran Shane Battier was seen as one of those surefire home run hires. When ESPN won the race to sign Battier after he retired from the NBA and the Miami Heat, it was a formality that he’d be a major part of their broadcasting ranks for a long time.
Battier seemingly had all the tools to do well on television. He was always a great interview subject, smart, charismatic, and more than just an empty parade of athlete cliches. Surely he’d do well on TV… right?
Uhhh… not so much.
Fans got their first glimpse of Battier as a game analyst alongside Sean McDonough as one of the top teams for ESPN’s college basketball coverage and it didn’t quite live up to expectations. In fact, Battier’s first real opportunity on the national stage announcing Ohio State-Louisville during the ACC/Big Ten Challenge sounded like Painfully Awkward Rob Lowe calling a basketball game.
Battier was sparse with his color commentary, soft spoken, and surprisingly wooden in his analysis. His attempts at humor fell flat (“I’ve never met a referee I didn’t like”) and some of his insights were either strange (like comparing the same Louisville player to both Shawn Bradley and Kevin Durant) or very obvious (“open shots lead to higher… makes”).
Battier just started in his TV career so there’s still plenty of time to turn it around, but it was clear after watching Ohio State-Louisville last night that there’s a lot of work to do to become the analyst many assumed he would be. It was so bad that “Shane Battier” was trending on Twitter last night. Just ask Chris Berman or Tim McCarver, it’s never good when an announcer trends on Twitter.
As always, these are Real Tweets from Real People…
https://twitter.com/ramzy/status/539982987585409024
https://twitter.com/BossTweedMD/status/539976838643458048
https://twitter.com/davidmaldridge/status/539980934658158592
When Shane Battier did the NBA Draft I remember thinking, well can't get any worse than that. I was wrong.
— Beau Bishop (@BeauBishop) December 3, 2014
Yep, Shane Battier is one of those guys who you thought would be a good announcer … and you were wrong.
— Dave Biddle (@davebiddle) December 3, 2014
https://twitter.com/aaronstol/status/539991811063029760
Shane Battier providing basic math that a 3 point shot is worth 1.5 the amount of a regular 2 point shot. #HotTake
— Buckeye Empire (@BuckeyeEmpire) December 3, 2014
Getting a very “Monty from Major League” vibe from Shane Battier thus far.
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) December 3, 2014
Shane Battier has now compared Anas Mahmoud to both Kevin Durant and Shawn Bradley in a 5 minute span. Unreal.
— Chad Wimsatt (@chadwimsatt) December 3, 2014
Dennis Miller thinks Shane Battier is struggling tonight
— APT (@Testaalp) December 3, 2014
Ohio St. being so awful is really overshadowing Shane Battier's attempt at being the worst color commentator in the history of sports.
— Hunter Campbell (@HunterCampbell) December 3, 2014
Shane Battier is barely taking and when he does it's inaudible mumbling.
— Vince Fonte (@VinceFonte) December 3, 2014
Shane Battier is beyond awful at color commentary. He talks like Siri.
— Meg Thee Stallijon (@JRS_One_) December 3, 2014
I've had some difficulty sleeping the last few nights, I'll just listen to Shane Battier tonight and I figure that should take care of it.
— Jeremy Birmingham (@Birm) December 3, 2014
We go live to Shane Battier's debut as a basketball TV analyst. pic.twitter.com/6OAVzTgF5U
— Mark Nagi (@MarkNagi) December 3, 2014
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