FOX SPORTS BROADCASTER TIM BRANDO

The Legendary sprts broadcaster chats with the guys on current sports stories including the upcoming NBA draft, recapping the NHL Stanley CUP Finals as well as the art of the play-by-play announcer!

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Mister Brando, how are you?It couldn't be better. It's getting up
in heres. But as you know, I'm still at it somewhere in there
forty years. I was trying.I was trying to build your resume up.

(00:21):
Don't trust me. It doesn't needany more buildings or aging. I
apologize. I'm actually I'm actually thinkingabout I'm actually thinking about going to broadcast
school. Now. That's that's that'swhat I think. I'm gonna go back
to Brotts about time. It's abouttime you try to get a little bit
better at what you do. Let'slet's talk about the way the draft and

(00:44):
the mock drafts are built. Andyou saw so many of these guys in
college basketball the last couple of years. Just your thoughts, Like Ben and
I were talking about this, youdid a lot of Big East games.
What why doesn't certain conferences like infootball get the same kind of respect,
especially the Big East when it comesto basketball players. I think it's not

(01:06):
numbers more than anything else. AndI think the other factor now is the
NBA. And again I may bethe worst possible person to ask about this,
because I've not really understood for yearswhy the direction of the league is
such that back to the basket big. You know, a guy like Shaquille

(01:26):
O'Neill, if he were coming uptoday, would be oh, I don't
know, maybe a second rounder.Wow, so true. I mean it
just makes no sense to me.Okay, none that that Zach Edie is
relegated to you know, late firstround if anything. You know, I

(01:49):
mean the guys that part I justdon't get. I understand that the game
is it's global now and biggs haveto be able to face up and score.
We know by the way AD's clinging. I mean, Donovan Klingen is
going to go much higher than Zachbecause he has that capability and he's been
running. He's been part of anoffense that's built as has been well documented

(02:13):
by Dan Hurley as a as anNBA prototype, So he'll go early.
As a matter of fact, Ithink I wouldn't be shocked at all if
Castle with number one, because he'sthat good. I think he's can't miss.
He's going to be a better prothan he was a college player.
And I think most people felt thatway going in all. You know,

(02:35):
it doesn't matter what kind of basketballyou're discussing. A guy that can beat
you in so many different ways andhas got such a tremendous skill set.
So I mean, could there beif Devin Carter were to go early.
I've seen some Mott drafts. Thekid from Providence might go in the top
ten. That would be quite afeat for the Big East this year.

(02:57):
But to answer your question, Ithink it's because of the globalization of the
sport, the fact that the Europeanplayers do play year round. They're playing
a game that is far more conducivefor early success with the way the NBA
likes to play. It's an offensivegame now, tremendous defensive players. One
thing that hurts Carter is so muchof what he does is from a defensive

(03:21):
standpoint. Is his catalyst. Hehe manufactured points. He's not a shooter,
He's a scorer, you know,And a lot of times guys that
do it with defense get overlooked inthe NBA because everything about the league now
is built around offense, not defense. And I think that's another one of
the reasons why guys like Eat slip. You know that whereas his greatest impact

(03:44):
going to be is big, itprobably would be on the defensive side,
and the league's just not founded thatway any longer. That's my that's my
answer to it. The two guysthat are going to burn me up all
week when they go so far downin the draft. Tristan Newton to me
is a can't miss guy, buthe's not going to go tonight. He'll
probably be tomorrow and whoever getshim's gonnabe lucky. Break down, breakdown Baylor

(04:09):
Shire and then you know why,you know the major reason for him.
Same thing with Baylor Sherman. You'reabout to go there age. He's old,
he's too damn old. You.It's like you stay in school to
hopefully own your skills get better,which is exactly what Tristan did. Yep,
I mean two years ago. Isaid this to you guys during the

(04:30):
Big East basketball season this past year. Two years ago. You go into
Connecticut, they're a top ten,top fifteen team, and you talk to
the opposing coaches about, okay,what if anything is an area that you
can exploit with Connecticut And they tellyou, yeah, I'm not so sure
about Newton at point guard. We'regonna we're gonna run two people at him.
We're gonna do a little running jump, We're gonna you know what,

(04:54):
that really was true, And actuallyI remember talking to Danny about it.
This was probably in December of thatyear or so, before the conference season
got started. Not last year,but the year before, and he even
indicated that, you know, Tristan'sstill learning a new position. You know,
he was a two, we're usinghim at a one. But you
know, our offensive session's true.He didn't have to handle the ball as

(05:16):
much as most point guards would becauseeverybody on that team had a good handle.
So but Baylor Syerman, to me, Fellas is a very underrated patzer.
To go along with this skill setto to hit a lot of three
pointers. His size is such that, you know, I almost looked at

(05:38):
him, and there were times hereminded me when he was at his best,
when he really got hot. Therewere times when he reminded me of
a combination Chris Mullen Debt Left shrimptype of guy. And I'm going way
back with Debt Left. I knowmost of you remember Mullen because of the
big East factor, but but youdon't see guys like that. And if

(05:59):
you think for one minute that youcan out quicking, he'll he'll defy that
logic. Too, So those arethose are really good examples that have guys
that are gonna go later than thatprobably shouldn't telling. It's Tim Brando from
Fox Sports, all right, Sowe talked about Nick Saban and a lot
of these other college football coaches thathad their guys prepared to go right into

(06:20):
the NFL. Besides Dan Hurley,what other programs in basketball college basketball do
you feel where they're getting these guysready for the NBA by how they do
their college stuff? Well, certainlywhen Jay Wright was at Villanova that was
the case. Uh. And bythe way, how many times did we
hear the so called bloviators, thedaytime cable pundits that are scratching the surface

(06:46):
to get maybe eight hundred thousand toa million viewers, and yet we read
about them on a daily basis,And they were all telling us that Michale
Bridges couldn't play at the next level. Daniel O Chef, who was a
project that would ever make it?Oh that heart kit, he plays with
a lot of heart, But Idon't know how much skill set he really
had. I mean, could youwant me to go on? I mean,

(07:10):
so, I mean that that's beena absolute basketball NBA factory. All
you have to do is just lookdown the road with the Knicks and see.
I mean, uh, it's it'strue that without the Philly Philadelphia base
talent, where would that organization beright now? And obviously Brunson is an
extraordinary player, and in the lateryears of Jay's reign and even now,

(07:30):
you can make the case that athleticallymost of his guys are a lot better
and probably are coming in with more, you know, with a lot more
valleyhooed backgrounds, with their own personalresumes than they ever did when Jay was
giving the foundation of that program.Going okay, so but that but that's

(07:53):
certainly another one, a program thatin recent years, the two titles that
they had in sixteen and eighteen andthey go back to a final four in
Jay's last year. I mean,they've done a pretty good job without having
what you'd call the most theatrical orathletic talent. But they've certainly filled a

(08:16):
lot of NBA rosters, haven't they. I mean they have in the Big
East, those are the ones thatcome to mind. North Carolina is still
i think, very much at thetop of the heap in that in that
area, and now more and morewhere I think we're seeing some great players
come out of the SEC as well. Keep an eye on what Alabama continues

(08:37):
to do under Mayoates. I thinkthat's a program that is on the rise.
I think, from my money,that's a team that I would almost
pick right now to be one ofthe four teams that we get in.
And they're losing some of that talent, but Oates is just a tremendous coach
and his program is not going togo away anytime soon. So those are

(09:01):
the ones that kind of jump outof me. Tim before you came on,
Dibbs told us that you've been watchingsome Stanley Cup playoffs and that you
share the same love we have inthis studio for Sean McDonough's call. Tell
us a little bit about McDonald whatyou know, and man, we're with
you. We think that this guyis a number one when it comes to
hockey play by play. Well,I happen to see a post on x

(09:24):
Twitter or whatever from Dan Walkin,who's a columnist, a sports columnist in
the USA today I very rarely haveever agree with politically, especially but Dan
made a point about watching that gameseven and it's hard to figure why Sean
McDonough wouldn't be number one at everysport that they have on that network now,

(09:45):
And I could not agree more.I think Sean could call a phone
book broadcasters. I tell young broadcastersthat want to be played by players,
if you want to really go toclass and you want to become a true
student of the art form of playby play, no matter the sport,
watch Sean McDonough do his job,give you the facts quickly, succinctly,

(10:11):
with some style, but never sacrificingsubstance with his style, and the personality
is there, and you throw himin a situation, a scenario in basketball
with guys like Jay Billison, BillRaftrie on the old Big East, when
when ESPN had that, no onecould have handled those two any better.

(10:31):
They were I think, probably thebest treestom to call basketball since in Burgh,
McGuire and Packer when you had threetogether. I don't think anybody's ever
come close to being even comparable tothose three other than when Shawn was in
the middle. His baseball does withoutsaying, everyone in New England knows that.

(10:52):
And you know if he's ever onDolph, you know Shawn's a the
ficionado when it comes to Dolf,sort of like I am. He loves
to play, he plays in alot of club championships, and he's a
pretty darn good player himself. Buthe's he's just got an understanding of the
tempo of every sport that that hecovers, and he certainly has a grasp
of the glossary of every sport.I thought it was when when I read

(11:16):
the the tweet from Walk and Ithought to myself, I'm so glad somebody
in media noticed that, because sooften the people that are covering guys like
us, that are broadcasting sports ona regular basis, they just unless there's
a screw up, unless there's aproblem, you know, the play by

(11:37):
play guys just don't get noticed anymore. And to me, play by play
broadcasting is, in essence, whatsports broadcasting should be about. It's what
gravitated me to the business as achild. I didn't want to be a
guy in a studio delivering scores anda Evelyn Wood speed reading halftime show,

(11:58):
but I had to do some ofthat to make a living. The reality
of being at the game, describingthe action as it happens without a script,
knowing what to say, how toplay off the people that you're working
with. That's part of the artform and it's really been overlooked in this
sort of clickbait, quick take,hot take environment that we have that spilled
over through the technology of what thephone that we carry and the way we

(12:28):
digest our sports. Now we wantto be mesmerized quickly, within ten seconds
of reading or fifteen seconds of watchingTV. And to me, that's missing
the point. Anybody that's ever gotteninto our business that didn't watch the greatness
of the Goudys, the Ray Scott's, Dick and Birds, all those guys.

(12:50):
Bob Costas falls in this category twoas a play by player as well
as a host. Those were theguys that wrote the rules for all things
sports broadcasting. And the only timeSean was getting attention during the Stanley Cup
was when his voice was failing andhe got sick. He was a former
brodn Kitus, I think, andso in the early games of the series

(13:13):
he was struggling. Some people noticedthat people complained about it. There were
some really shameful posts that came outand to a point where I think the
publicists of ESPN finally decided they neededto address it, and they put out
a post talking about how he hadbeen ill and he even missed the game,
as you know, and Bob wasshoes in another tourific broadcaster did a

(13:33):
great job, but nobody notices untilit's something like that. But I think
keeping praise on those calls from Gamefive through Game seven, he was terrific.
And I thought the last thirty secondswhen the puck was up against the
boards and they couldn't get it out, and he talked about how emblematic that
had been for the game and thisseries, as that Edmonton was giving their

(13:56):
all and skating with Florida all theway through being down from free games to
none, and then there's forty secondsleft, then thirty the countdown. It
was tremendous what he did. Andyou know, finally for somebody walking and
recognize it. And I decided tothrow my two cents worth in as well.
But Shahn's a dear friend. I'mnot gonna lie. He's somebody I

(14:18):
think the world of and I believethe feeling is mutual. But I just
think that we have too much timespent on a lot of bloviators by those
that cover media on sports television today, and those guys are on all day
long, spitting out whatever they want, and then we hear all about what
how much money they're gonna get paid, and they're drawing about six hundred thousand,

(14:41):
eight hundred thousand viewers each day.Well, when McDonald goes out and
does a hockey game, it's thehighest rated since twenty nineteen, almost eight
to nine million viewers for hockey's that'ssort of record breaking stuff in the modern
era. I would suggest those guysare are worth a hell of a lot
more, at the very least,a hell of a lot more attention for

(15:03):
a job really well done. Couldn'tagree with you more, mister Brando.
I wish we had a little bitmore time to spend with you. We
will, I'm sure in the comingweeks. But thank you so much in
short notice for coming on and uhinforming us so well. We appreciate it.
Well, I'm gonna go back tomy bark louse, you know,
taking a little replay of the OhGuys, might be the fifty one series.

(15:26):
Oh yeah, just I'm stuck inyesterdayear Rob. But what weren't you
one of the tasty boys, Yes, tasty boys boys there you'd be well,
Ben buddy, thank you there ByeTim. He is the best.

(15:50):
We'll take quick break. We'll comeback with the first tips question of the day.