Sometimes you can see into the future as a sports media writer. You watch a lot of sports on television — that was the device we used back in the early 2000s — and someone on a broadcast says something that makes you pay closer attention to the voice because the analysis you just heard was deeper and provided more insight than you expected.
The first time I wrote about Doris Burke is easily searchable. It was 2002, and I was a young reporter at Sports Illustrated, filling in on a media column for the May 13, 2002 edition of the magazine. Part of the column discussed Fox’s new No. 1 NFL team (Joe Buck, Troy Aikman and Cris Collinsworth) and pondered whether the price of $54.95 for Mike Tyson-Lennox Lewis was worth it. (It wasn’t.) Then came a short blurb on Burke:
“Over the next few weeks, ESPN will assemble its announcing teams for the 2002-03 NBA season, and the usual suspects (Brent Musberger, Marv Albert) will likely be paraded out like Thanksgiving Day floats. Here’s a vote for a name that lacks cachet but not credibility: Doris Burke. The 36-year-old ESPN hoops analyst and play-by-play voice for the WNBA’s New York Liberty is a superbly prepared broadcaster blessed with an innate feel for the game. In February 2000, she shone as an analyst on a Knicks game and has been excellent on both men’s and women’s college basketball telecasts. ESPN would be wise to find room on its roster for her.”
ESPN ultimately did.
Both sides were rewarded for many years. Burke had prominent roles on ESPN’s women’s and men’s college basketball and WNBA coverage. Then came a long run as a sideline reporter on ESPN’s NBA coverage, including the NBA Finals. Then came a series of firsts:
• In 2017, ESPN named her to the position of national NBA game analyst, making her the first woman to serve full-time in that capacity.
• In 2020, she became the first woman to serve as a game analyst for the NBA Finals on any platform, when she served as an analyst on ESPN Radio.
• Last year, she made history by becoming the first woman to serve as a television analyst for any major American men’s sports championship event when she called the NBA Finals on ABC.
ESPN, naturally, promoted the hell out of all of these announcements. Very good pub for Disney.
You like who you like as far as sports broadcasters, and if you have read my stuff over the years, it’s crystal-clear how I feel about, say, the indefatigable Hubie Brown. Same goes on the opposite end of the river with the unctuous Skip Bayless. I concede I’ve always been a mark for Burke.
Some of that, no doubt, was that I got to see her work ethic up close when we both covered Women’s Final Fours. I like analysts who are prepared, professional and teach me something about a sport. It’s why I think Troy Aikman is so good.
Burke did that for years on women’s basketball and then did the same on NBA coverage. She faced a lot of social media animus when she moved to the NBA — and, yes, more than other NBA voices — but I admired how she forged through and found her place in the sport. There was a reason NBA coaches such as Steve Kerr and Rick Carlisle were public about their respect for her. Same with LeBron James and Kevin Durant. It wasn’t charity; they respected her grind and understood the road wasn’t easy.
If you didn’t like her style, that was cool. It’s a subjective business. I’m also a realist: I wrote and believe to this day that ESPN laying off Jeff Van Gundy was a brutal strategic mistake and one of the worst talent decisions the company had made over the last decade. ESPN’s NBA Finals booth has never been the same or nearly as good.
Andrew Marchand’s breaking news today that Tim Legler will replace Burke on ESPN’s NBA Finals team had been telegraphed for some time, including the excellent reporting by Marchand from June inside ESPN’s revolving NBA Finals door, and how the three-person booth of Breen, Burke and Jefferson had challenges. This is accurate. That booth felt less like a symphony and more like three soloists. As Marchand wrote, the NBA Finals are not a time to find chemistry. It’s been clear changes were coming and Burke’s camp knew this.
While ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro or president Burke Magnus could have vetoed the move, as Marchand noted, it was ultimately decided by executive vice president Mike McQuade, who oversees all of ESPN’s event production. Legler is a longtime favorite of McQuade. Burke was a favorite of Dave Roberts, now ESPN’s executive vice president and executive editor of sports news and entertainment and formally someone who had more oversight of its NBA staffing.
When I reached her this afternoon, Burke politely declined to comment.
But Burke understands how the business works. When I spoke to her in 2019 upon signing a then-long-term deal with ESPN, she described herself as a fundamentally insecure person on the topic of employment contracts.
“We live in a little bit of a funky business in that you are living contract to contract,” she said. “There is inherently fundamental pressure to that. Now, there may be announcers who are so confident in their abilities that they do not even give it a second thought. They just automatically think the next contract is on the horizon. I am not one of those people … I think it is a fundamentally changeable job I am in.
“You can walk into a room where two people have opinions 180 degrees of each other discussing the same announcer. Not every announcer appeals to every person. That’s just the nature of it. Maybe one person’s ear hears you differently than another. It’s funny, Holly Rowe and I have talked about this: We approach our jobs as though our next contract was at stake.”
The formal announcement came Thursday afternoon that Legler will join Mike Breen, Richard Jefferson and reporter Lisa Salters on the call for the NBA Finals on ABC, the conference finals, first- and second-round games during the NBA Playoffs, a Christmas Day game and NBA Saturday Primetime on ABC. Burke will call games on ESPN and ABC, including the playoffs. Her new partner is Dave Pasch, who is excellent at what he does.
ESPN also announced they had extended Burke’s contract. That deal is for multiple years. Everyone remains employed and wealthy. First world problems, in many ways.
Burke’s legacy in the business was long ago cemented, but this is a good day to reflect on it. If you look around the NBA, you see women broadcasting everywhere, including Lisa Byington and Kate Scott breaking the ceiling on full-time NBA play-by-play game-calling. There are women analysts who perform the same duties Burke does. That doesn’t happen if Burke (and give props to Cheryl Miller, Ann Meyers and Stephanie Ready, too) do not pave the way. The word “pioneer” can get thrown around cheaply, but Burke has earned that title.
There will be plenty of time to weigh in on the new team of Breen, Legler and Jefferson. Personally, I expect Legler to be very good. He comes from the same line of preparation as Burke, and he worked his way up the ESPN chain as she did.
But if I were his talent agent, I would tell him the same thing I’d tell anyone in his position: Watch your back if someone famous in the NBA retires over the next couple of years. If ESPN has told you anything about its NBA Finals broadcast booth, it’s that change might come by the time you reach the end of this column.
(Photo: Ethan Miller / Getty Images)