No matter what happens in the team's ongoing playoff series with the Detroit Pistons, a certain era of New York Knicks basketball is literally going out with a "bang."
Until further notice, the Knicks-Pistons playoff series will be the last one that airs on New York's local television home of MSG Network. Under the new NBA media deal that takes effect next season, first-round games will move to exclusivity on national networks and streaming services.
That doesn't sit well with Mike Breen, the lauded play-by-play man who has a foot in both worlds as the Knicks' primary voice on MSG and as the narrator for the top games on ABC and ESPN, including the NBA Finals.
Mike BreenKirby Lee-Imagn Images
“It’s really sad," Breen told Neil Best of Newsday. "I think it’s so unfortunate, because for the fans, they want to hear their local broadcasters, at least for some part of the postseason, because broadcasters often are part of the fans’ family."
The league will tip off new deals with Amazon and NBC next season, which will move select playoff games to their respective streaming services, Prime Video and Peacock. The odd company is Warner Bros. Discovery, whose network, TNT, is in the midst of broadcasting its final NBA games.
First-round games have long been available on regional sports networks like MSG, but that tradition will end after this postseason. The voice of Breen will continue to define the NBA Playoffs, but he'll have to leave behind longtime color commentator Walt "Clyde" Frazier on the postseason roads ahead. MSG is currently slated to air the Games 3, 5, and (if necessary) 6, as weekend games are exclusive with national television partners.
Once this first-round ends, only the National Hockey League's first round will be available on RSN's among the commonly-accepted four North American sports leagues. Breen's ESPN colleague John Buccigross recently remarked that the NHL "needs" to engage in a similar set-up when they're able to renegotiate in 2029 but the bellower of "Bang!" couldn't disagree more.
“I think it was a bad decision from the league," Breen told Best. "You can’t blame the rightsholders, because they’re paying all this money. But the league should have said, you know what, we’re going to hold onto that first round. I was really disappointed that they didn’t hold onto the first round, because it means something to the fans.”
Breen appears to have an ally in this cause in Knicks owner James Dolan, who has been critical of the Association's new media deal due to the impact it'll potentially have on RSN's like MSG.
"The NBA has made the move to an NFL model -- deemphasizing and depowering the local market," Dolan wrote a the letter obtained by Adrian Wojnarowski, then of ESPN, in July. "Soon, your only revenue concern will be the sale of tickets and what color next year's jersey will be. Don't worry, because due to revenue pooling, you are guaranteed to be neither a success nor a failure."
"Of course, to get there, the league must take down the successful franchises and redistribute to the less successful. This new media deal goes a long way to accomplishing that goal."
This article first appeared on New York Knicks on SI and was syndicated with permission.
