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Phillies Fans Want NBC Sports Philadelphia to Stop Going to Commercial During the Jhoan Duran Entrance
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Interesting conundrum we have here. Phillies fans are calling for the Jhoan Duran intro to be shown on television every night, while a few weeks ago T Mac said the broadcast is “probably not” going to show it all the time, picking spots instead:
On one hand, nobody wants to see commercials. Not not, not ever. When’s the last time somebody said, “man I can’t wait for this next commercial break!“? Never. It only happens if you’re a non-sports fan watching the Super Bowl.
Of course, the powers that be have to pay for everything somehow, which is why we’re inundated with advertisements all over the place. A necessary evil of jersey patches and highway billboards and every square inch of the ballpark covered with some sort of corporate logo.
The other consideration is that the Duran intro is ELECTRIC. One of the best things going for the Phils and the fans and the overall vibes right now. I don’t think it’s out of line to say that the entrance brings back a bit of the 2022 magic, ala Dancing on My Own and all of the Garrett Stubbs locker room videos and whatnot. The Phillies are the most vibe-ish team in the city, in my opinion, and when the vibes are good it would behoove the broadcast to adjust accordingly.
The third consideration is one of technical television itself. Duran’s intro runs what, like 35-40 seconds? So he runs onto the field and now he’s on the mound and then what? The broadcast sits there for another 90 seconds, talking over warmup pitches? Or do they cut to 2-3 quick commercials and come back? You have to think about how you’re stacking that on the rundown, especially because you have to fit in X number of breaks over the course of a game and you don’t have a lot of opportunities past the 9th inning to meet those requirements.
At the same time, there’s not a single fan who cares about television logistics and would ask that NBCSP producers and directors simply “figure it out” on their end. That’s what my old managing editor at CBS 3 used to say. He didn’t understand that if you added 20 seconds to the show, 20 seconds would have to come out of the rundown somewhere else. He would simply grunt and say “just figure it out.” And we did.
I saw a comment on one of these tweets asking if Duran’s intro could be sponsored. That’s a great question. I guess it would depend on name/image/likeness rules in the collective bargaining agreement, maybe licensing with the walk out music. Not totally sure. It’s one thing for Toyota to sponsor the Rav 4th inning as a whole, but sponsoring an individual player’s introduction feels like it falls into a different rule set. We can ask around and look for an answer there. The only consideration is that it does feel like slapping a sponsor on the entrance would cheapen it a little bit, but if that’s the tradeoff for being able to see it every time, then most people would probably sign up for that.
Another thing a social media user mentioned was that the Mets overdid it with the Timmy Trumpet Edwin Diaz intro. Can’t confirm because we don’t watch a lot of Mets games, but that’s a fair point as well. If the Duran intro is showed all the time, does it lose some of its luster? Does it ever get old? Maybe, maybe not. He’s also not out there every night, so how many times per week are you gonna see it? Two? Three?
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