Commissioner David Stern: NBA Owners Discussed Cracking Down On "Homer" Local TV Announcers

NBA commissioner David Stern told reporters on Friday that the league's Board of Governors addressed the presence of "homer" announcers on local television broadcasts during meetings in New York City this week.

We really had fun as we always do with the report on officiating, in the language of diplomacy I'd say we had a frank and open dialogue, with our owners who it was an interesting welcome by ownership to Mike Bantam the new head of officiating, and I would say that we'll have another lively discussion on that subject in July as well at a board meeting that we're about to notice. And a presentation covered a variety of things, including the data inputs that we're now collecting with respect to calls that we've been doing for over seven years.

The extensive recruiting efforts that we're undertaking, and a lot of other things that -- including some questioning about whether -- wasn't there anything we could do about the tenor of certain home team reporting on regional sports networks by which fans get their impression of the NBA and basically we told the owners that we explained what a homer is. And we weren't talking about baseball.

And that that sells and that's what some of the networks are telling their announcers, and that has in its collectivity builds a certain impression, but we're all over it, and we're working on it.

NBA.com's John Schuhmann started running an "Air Check" column this season pointing out the shortcomings of local television crews. The Portland Trail Blazers' team of Mike Barrett and Mike Rice made an appearance in one column for their questioning of the officials during a game against the New Orleans Hornets.

-- Ben Golliver | benjamin.golliver@gmail.com | Twitter