ESPN NBA play by play voice Mike Breen

Sports Media with Richard Deitsch

Audacy

News, Business News, Sports, Sports News

4.3 • 721 Ratings

🗓️ 27 May 2025

⏱️ 41 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Episode 511 of the Sports Media Podcast with Richard Deitsch features Mike Breen, the lead NBA game-caller for ESPN and ABC. Breen will be the play by play voice of the NBA Finals, which will be his 20th straight NBA Finals, the most any play-by-play voice has called consecutively. In this podcast, Breen discusses what is unique about calling games in Oklahoma City and Minneapolis; how surreal it would be to call the Knicks in the Finals given he is the long time play-by-play announcer for Knicks telecasts on MSG Networks; whether people outside of New York care about the Knicks; calling Game 5 of the 1994 NBA Finals between the Knicks and Rockets as O.J. Simpson led Los Angeles police on a low-speed chase after a warrant for his arrest was issued in connection to the murder of his ex-wife Nicole Brown and her friend Ron Goldman; adjusting to significant analyst turnover over the last few years; his interest in how NBC and Amazon will put on NBA games; being part of Hubie Brown's last broadcast; NBA viewership and more. You can subscribe to this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and more. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Welcome to the Sports Media Podcast.
0:13.6	I'm your host, Richard Dutch.
0:14.6	My producer is Patrick Antonetti.
0:16.6	One guest on this podcast, someone who's been on this podcast a number of times and has just lived an incredible broadcasting life.
0:25.9	Mike Breen is the lead NBA game caller for ESPN ABC.
0:29.8	He's currently calling the NBA Western Conference Finals between the Minnesota Timberwolves and the Oklahoma City Thunder.
0:35.4	He'll, of course, be the play-by-play boys of the NBA Finals, where this will be his 20th straight NBA Finals.
0:41.2	That's the most ever for any play-by-play voice in terms of calling NBA Finals consecutively.
0:47.0	And we had a great conversation that captured the uniqueness of calling games at Oklahoma City in Minnesota, or Minneapolis, I should
0:56.0	say. And then we get into sort of what if the Knicks are there and what that would mean to
1:00.3	Mike, someone who's called the Knicks locally since 1991, has a great story about calling
1:07.7	the game during the OJ Chase. We talked a lot about, he's had to do a lot of sort of shuffling
1:15.4	when it comes to his analysts. He's had a number of analysts now over the last couple of years,
1:20.3	just given what's happened with Van Gundy and Jackson, Doc Rivers, JJ Redick, etc.
1:25.5	And then we get into some other stuff, including his love for Hugh B.
1:30.3	Mike's family suffered a horrible fire three years ago, but thankfully, no one was
1:35.1	hurt in that fire.
1:36.0	They've rebuilt the house and in roughly the same place.
1:40.0	And so that's given him, I think, an appreciation for many things.
1:44.9	So it was a great conversation about 35, 36 minutes or so.
1:48.3	Mike Breen, the lead voice for ESPN when it comes to all things NBA coming up on the sports media podcast.
1:59.8	All right.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Audacy, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Audacy and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.