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Zach Lowe with Some “Gentle” Criticism of Sixers’ TV Broadcast

Kevin Kinkead

By Kevin Kinkead

Published:

Russ saw this on social:

“I will say this as gentle as I can, Philly/Bulls was the NBA TV game, which meant that Philly’s broadcast was also on NBA TV, and it was fun to see the announce team, Kate Scott and Alaa Abdelnaby, go into their usual Philly homerism, and then remember ‘oh there’s other people outside of Philadelphia watching this broadcast,’ and then self-correct in real time. Can we just tone it down 10% on the homerism scale?”

Some people like Kate and Alaa, and some people don’t, but in this particular clip, Lowe is talking about homerism, and that’s hard to gauge unless you watch a lot of NBA. How many other local broadcast pairings can the average Sixers fan even name, let alone speak about with merit? It’s almost impossible to determine how “homerish” Kate and Alaa are in relation to 29 other other teams. What percentile homer are they?

Local broadcasters typically always call a game with some favoritism to their team. That’s nothing new. Kate is the play-by-play person, so she should be enthusiastic and excited for big Sixers moments. Alaa is color commentary, and the one thing I’ll say about him is that nothing is ever a foul on the Sixers. If Joel Embiid roundhouse kicks Daniel Gafford directly in the face, Alaa will say, “I don’t know about that one, there wasn’t much contact.” Then, if Gafford complains to the ref while blood is pouring from his nose, he’ll say, “I don’t know what Gafford is complaining about.”

That’s my contribution to the gentle criticism.

Kevin Kinkead
Kevin Kinkead

Kevin has been writing about Philadelphia sports since 2009. He spent seven years in the CBS 3 sports department and started with the Union during the team's 2010 inaugural season. He went to the academic powerhouses of Boyertown High School and West Virginia University. email - k.kinkead@sportradar.com

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