NBC to station NBA analysts by benches for some games

In a take-off of the “Inside the Glass” approach it brought to hockey, NBC Sports said Tuesday that it will situate its NBA analysts by the team benches for some games this season.

NBC Sports announced Tuesday that it will station its NBA game analysts courtside by the team benches for some telecasts this season, an effort that it is calling an “industry first.” Analysts will be able to listen into team huddles and provide first-hand information from the bench, presumably much the same way as a sideline reporter. Not surprisingly, there will be no sideline reporters on those games.

Titled “On the Bench,” the unique arrangement will be in place on 23 Monday night games, starting with Pistons-Cavaliers on October 27. In that first game, analysts Robbie Hummel and Austin Rivers will be positioned by the benches of Detroit and Cleveland, respectively.

NBC executive producer Sam Flood said in a release Monday that while the “On the Bench” analysts will seek to relay “unique insights that only this type of access will provide,” the network will “respect the sanctity of the inside information our analysts are able to hear.”

It was Flood who came up with the idea for NBC’s “Inside the Glass” feature on NHL games, wherein a game analyst or reporter is stationed in the glass partition between the team benches. That approach, which NBC launched upon its first NHL season in 2006, has been taken up by every major NHL broadcaster since — and continues even years after NBC lost rights to the league.

NBC has also used a ‘radio style’ approach on NASCAR races, with broadcasters and analysts stationed at multiple points along the track.

ESPN once did something similar on Major League Baseball, stationing then-analysts Steve Phillips and Orel Hershiser in the camera wells beside each dugout for a game in 2009, as reported at the time by Michael Hiestand of USA Today.

All of the “On the Bench” games will be exclusive to Peacock, save for Mavericks-Trail Blazers on December 29 and Celtics-Pistons on Martin Luther King Day, which will air on NBC as well.