Sports News

Also: catching up with Sam Mewis, and ESPN/ABC's missed moment in the NBA Finals.

By Chad Finn

June 13, 2026 | 10:16 AM

4 minutes to read

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In its quest to be the national destination for Sunday sports, NBC has done far more right than wrong in recent years, including identifying Mike Tirico as its lead voice for NBA broadcasts, and adding ex-Patriot Devin McCourty to the “Football Night in America” studio program.

This season marks the first time NBC has had Major League Baseball broadcast rights since 2000, and it should be no surprise that the broadcasts are excellent, both modern and sharp in their look, and yet with the proper dose of nostalgia for the days when the network had a Saturday game of the week, with the likes of Vin Scully, Joe Garagiola, Bob Costas (a welcome part of this reboot), and Tony Kubek on the calls.

But the detail and decision that NBC got especially right might have been the most important one of all: naming Jason Benetti the lead play-by-play voice.

The reasons are myriad. He has a cadence somewhat similar to the best broadcasters of the past — sometimes you hear a little bit of Scully in his call, sometimes Ernie Harwell. But he’s also a very modern broadcaster, one who enjoys analytics (he was the play-by-play voice on ESPN’s Statcast broadcasts) but doesn’t overwhelm the listener with them. He’s great company for a ballgame, which is what every play-by-play voice should aspire to be.

It must be noted too that Benetti, who is also the TV voice of the Tigers, would seem to have an extra degree of difficulty during the NBC broadcasts, since each week he’s working with different analysts, one from each of the teams playing the game. During Sunday’s Red Sox-Rangers matchup on NBC, he’ll be paired with NESN’s Lou Merloni and Rangers analyst and former pitcher Mike Bacsik.

Benetti, however, talks about it like it’s more of a degree of delight.

“I go into these broadcasts every week having no idea what we’re going to end up talking about, but as a curious person, that makes it more fun and a little suspenseful,” he said during a phone conversation Thursday. “We always have stuff ready, of course, but it’s almost like a fun puzzle, where we find that piece where we realize, ‘Oh, you know this same person,’ or ‘I didn’t know you were in this situation until you mentioned it’ that kind of fires my broadcaster brain up even more.”

Benetti said he knows Merloni from “the hallways of Fenway and Comerica” but hasn’t worked with him. He’s looking forward to it, and said he does some homework on how the analysts he’s working with like to call games, though his scouting only goes so far.

“I’m not going to be looking at Framingham [Merloni’s hometown] on Google Maps or anything,” he joked.

Mewis threading the needle

Enjoyed chatting earlier this week with Sam Mewis, the former United States women’s national soccer team star and Hanson native, on the impact “Ted Lasso” may have had on the sport in the United States.

She was a great resource, not only because of her experience and expertise, but also because what “Lasso” has done well — thread the needle between appealing to novice and diehard soccer fans — is also something she is doing on her popular podcast, “The Women’s Game,” which is under the Men In Blazers umbrella and available on all the usual podcast providers.

“Since I started working here, our goal has been to widen the lens and to make our soccer conversations as accessible and as applicable to the widest audience possible,” she said. “We want superfans to listen but we also want brand new fans to listen and engage and understand and not have discussion be out of reach for anybody.

“The show really was a roadmap for what we’re doing here. We want to invite everybody in and share in all the joys of the game, what makes it special, and what makes the community special.”

ESPN/ABC missed a moment

I’d give ESPN/ABC’s NBA Finals broadcast team of Mike Breen, Tim Legler, Richard Jefferson generally good marks for the work they’ve done during an often exhilarating Knicks-Spurs battle.

Breen, a voice of the Knicks local broadcasts for 34 years, deserves all the credit for calling this series as evenly as he does, not that his professionalism is any surprise.

But I did think the trio — particularly Legler and Jefferson, the analyst — chucked up an airball in the final seconds of Game 4, when they failed to question or even acknowledge Spurs guard De’Aaron Fox’s decision to try to score after scooping up a loose ball in the backcourt with his team ahead by 1 and approximately 10 seconds remaining.

Knicks Game 4 superhero OG Anunoby blocked the foolish layup attempt, when the right play for Fox was to dribble around and try to take a second or two off the clock.

So much happened at the end of that historic game that its understandable that some details got overlooked in the moment. But Fox’s decision had to be addressed. How about cutting out a couple of unnecessary celebrity shots and giving Legler and Jefferson time to address the important stuff from the actual game?