Awful Announcing
"Do you have a hearing problem or a comprehension problem. I asked Masai about crime in Toronto. The word “black” never came up. Nor did it come up in doing the research for the question."
"As a Canadian team, it doesn’t directly impact your team because you’re in an entirely different country."
Only one NBA broadcast team has a Black TV play-by-play announcer. The same is true for radio.
Rogers' Sportsnet Now crashed during the first half of Game 5 of the NBA Final. Bell's Fibe TV crashed in the final 30 seconds there. And Fibe TV's app crashed during the final moments of Game 6, causing viewers to miss the moment where the Raptors officially won the NBA championship.
Helwani gave a passionate speech about what he thinks the Raptors' win meant to Canada.
Just about 2,000 miles off there, TSN.
The solid (but not spectacular) rating slots in the middle of the pack when compared to prior Game 6 ratings.
The average audience of 6.9 million viewers (English and French) here broke a lot of Canadian sports viewership marks, and even beat the Canadian audience for The Big Bang Theory's series finale.
The injury to Kevin Durant obviously casts a bit of a shadow over the NBA Finals, but the overnight rating for Game 5 was easily the best of the series.
Friday's Game 4 saw a higher average English-language audience in Canada than this year's Super Bowl (which wasn't simsubbed).
Toronto's home market doesn't help American television ratings, but the possibility of a competitive series has to be promising.
After getting bumped on standby from multiple flights and an ill-timed Pei Wei run, Tas Melas missed out on seeing Toronto clinch the East.
