Source for the statistics about the announcers: https://thehill.com/changing-america/enrichment/arts-culture/562133-nba-commentators-racial-bias-is-showing-according-to/
Why is it that most of the players in the league are black but most of the voices commentating on the games over the airways are white?
It’s because we have a bias toward white voices and white-sounding people. We don’t want a “black-sounding voice” commentating on our basketball even though that would be more representative of the league today. Most of the black people who commentate games are color commentators rather than play-by-play. They provide the “basketball knowledge” while the white play-by-play man is the voice we want on the big moments. For some reason, the voices of Kevin Harlan, Mike Breen, and Marv Albert feel right to us. We say that they just have the “right voice for announcing.” But do we realize that when we imagine the “right voice for announcing” it’s basically always a white cis-man’s voice in our head? That’s what represents gravitas and dignity for us. Even black announcers like Mark Jones clearly have to whitewash their voices in order to be fit for the American airways
I think we would all benefit if we were more mindful of this disparity and found ways to give more of the radio and television jobs to black people, until the distribution matches that of the league.
Why does race matter? What’s wrong with more white people announcing games? There are more white people than black people in America. Obviously at almost every job, there will be more white people than any other race. Why do you want to divide everyone?
The US is 60% white
NBA viewership is only 40% white (there are more black viewers at 45%)
There’s no way that should translate to 92% of announcers being white