Noah Eagle discusses fear of botching call of a big highlight play that ‘lives forever’

Noah Eagle will be one of the main voices of the NBA starting this fall when the NBA on NBC returns.

While Eagle receives a lot of attention as the son of broadcasting legend Ian Eagle and rises to big jobs before age 30, being a Millennial broadcaster also comes with its downsides. Growing up consuming sports online, Eagle is painfully aware of how embarrassing it can be to screw up in a viral social media clip.

So when Eagle calls games for YES Network or NBC, he knows he has to be hyper-prepared and “cognizant” throughout each moment of action.

“I think that’s how people consume highlights now, as opposed to sitting down and watching TV with SportsCenter on like I did before I went to school, when I was eating my cereal and I was hearing Stuart Scott do a highlight,” Eagle said recently in an interview on The Press Box podcast.

“That doesn’t exist anymore. Now it’s House of Highlights, Bleacher Report, all these services on Twitter and Instagram. That’s where a lot of, especially younger, people are consuming (highlights), and that’s why somebody like (Bally Sports Southeast Charlotte Hornets announcer) Eric Collins could become a household name. Because the highlights are awesome, and he’s so excited and he’s so, you know, in your face with it. People respond to that. It still resonates with them.”

Collins’ ecstatic, over-the-top style is a perfect example of how an announcer can infuse a viral basketball highlight with a different level of magic. Despite the Hornets annually dwelling at the bottom of the NBA, the team has some of the most exciting clips each year, in large part because Collins’ screams echo atop them.

Eagle tries to treat every play as if it could be an opportunity to match someone like Collins on the call.

“Now more than ever, the NBA is a league where the best play of the season can happen at any moment because these guys are so athletic, so gifted, so talented and really so skilled that anything can happen in a blink,” he said.

“So you have to be so prepared at any moment that the best play of the season could happen in front of you, and you better be on it. Because if you miss it, that highlight lives forever. And especially now, it comes back on Twitter, and then it comes back on Twitter, and then a year from now it comes back on Twitter. So you better be prepared to nail it.”

Eagle will be the No. 2 play-by-play man at NBC starting next season behind Mike Tirico. The network will air All-Star events and postseason games, giving Eagle plenty of chances to cement himself in NBA history as the voice of an iconic play.