ESPN’s NBA draft coverage Thursday night will be slightly different than its recent NFL draft coverage.
That’s because ESPN will allow its fleet of reporters to tweet out selections before they’re announced on TV, something the network didn’t allow for its NFL draft coverage in April.
The idea with not tweeting out picks ahead of time is that ESPN didn’t want to spoil the entertainment value of its TV coverage of the event by sucking out the drama. For many viewers, learning each pick via social media before it’s officially announced is far less satisfying than the anticipation of watching the commissioner walk out to the podium after extensive debate as to what’s going to happen.
The NBA draft will be different, and Awful Announcing likely hit the nail on the head in suggesting it’s probably because of Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports’ The Vertical, at least more than anyone else.
No disrespect to ESPN’s crop of NBA insiders, like Marc Stein and Chad Ford, or any of the other reporters tapped into The Association’s pipeline, but Wojnarowski has set the standard for locking down scoops, and he typically tweets each pick well before it’s announced. That’s problematic for ESPN, with The Vertical offering its own NBA live show in which picks routinely are revealed ahead of time, something that viewers not concerned with the dramatic aspect of the draft might find appealing.
In other words, one could argue ESPN was cutting its reporters off at the knees by disallowing their pre-announcement tweets. Sure, it might enhance the viewing experience for some, but it also gave off the illusion (accurate or not) that Woj — and some reporters from other outlets, to be fair — was absolutely destroying ESPN’s talented bunch on in-draft scoops.
This year, with ESPN allowing its reporters to tweet picks ahead of time, the onus is back on fans to make sure they avoid spoilers. And by next year’s NBA draft, well, Woj likely will be with ESPN, as he’s expected to join the network at some point in the near future, with both Stein and Ford among those losing their jobs as part of the Worldwide Leader in Sports’ recent layoffs.
Thumbnail photo via Jerry Lai/USA TODAY Sports Images
