Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of American Basketball Association broadcasters

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep‎. I can see a clear consensus that this list meets WP:NLIST. (non-admin closure) Cocobb8 (💬 talk • ✏️ contribs) 18:46, 9 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

List of American Basketball Association broadcasters

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WP:NOTTVGUIDE applies here. Just another case of WP:LISTCRUFT to appeal to nobody but the small minority of the most ardent fans. The subjects are not described as a group, failing WP:LISTN. Additionally WP:NOTDATABASE and WP:ROUTINE. As with sources per WP:RS besides those unsourced, consists of nothing but YouTube posts, dead links, trivial mentions, WP:PRIMARY, commercial sites, WP:TERTIARY, fanpages and primarily on anything but the broadcasting itself; not helping this list to assert notability. SpacedFarmer (talk) 16:54, 2 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: Television, Basketball, and Lists. SpacedFarmer (talk) 16:54, 2 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Radio-related deletion discussions. WCQuidditch ☎ ✎ 17:45, 2 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Keep: It's dutifully noted at the very top of the article, that the American Basketball Association had its games (primarily just the All-Star Game, weekend playoff games, and a game from the championship series also on the weekends) televised by CBS. Don Criqui, Pat Summerall, and Dick Stockton were among the announcers that were featured on CBS' stint with the ABA, which lasted from the 1969-70 season through the 1972-73 season, just prior to them landing the National Basketball Association contract from ABC. It's also noted that by 1976, CBS had envisioned televising a postseason playoff series between the NBA and ABA. The final game in the ABA's existence prior to the merger with the NBA was Game 6 of the 1976 ABA Finals between the New York (now Brooklyn) Nets and the Denver Nuggets, which aired on HBO. It's also noted at the top that NBC was slated and contracted to televise a potential Game 7, but since the series ended in six games, the contract with them was void. The point is that there's much more to this article than simply listing names of announcers and TV and radio stations. One of the factors for why the ABA didn't last longer was that it never really had a solid network television contract. Keep in mind that ESPN was still about three years away when the ABA closed up shop. However, it's been reported that former ABA owners such as Ozzie and Daniel Silna of the Spirit of St. Louis (who didn't make the cut for the merger) still make money of of the NBA's TV contracts. Bob Costas was the play-by-play announcer for the St. Louis franchise early in his career. BornonJune8 (talk) 07:47, 3 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
- The American Basketball Association is part of the NBA's history and DNA, hence the ABA–NBA merger and four of its franchises, the San Antonio Spurs, Denver Nuggets, New York Nets, and Indiana Pacers crossing over. The NBA absorbed the records of the ABA when the two leagues merged in 1976. Its influence on its chief rival can't be denied or overlooked. So it perhaps, isn't entirely fair to simply say or write it off as something that would appeal to nobody but the small minority of the most ardent fans. Like I said, a major television network like CBS aired some of the ABA's games for about three-four years and was subsequently interested in televising an ABA vs. NBA playoff series. There isn't a whole lot of coverage, in-depth or elsewhere about the ABA's media deals (TV and radio), in part because of its inability of landing a substantial network TV deal. BornonJune8 (talk) 08:01, 3 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
  You could argue you like but this argument belongs to the article about ABA. New sources are about the games and announcers. Still it doesn't excuse my rationale. SpacedFarmer (talk) 17:27, 3 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Keep I think this is a reasonable spin out of the main ABA article. The broadcasting side is an important part of any modern sports league's history. TV and radio coverage are essential for a team to build a fanbase, so calling this "listcruft" is unnecessarily harsh. I know Terry Pluto's book Loose Balls (already cited in the article) devotes some space to broadcasting rights and some of the broadcasting personalities. Zagalejo (talk) 23:42, 3 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Keep: I believe significant enough coverage has been demonstrated to meet WP:LISTN. Also pretty clear the nominator doesn't understand what's important in a nomination if they're attacking those who are interested in an article. Hey man im josh (talk) 18:20, 5 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Keep: However, I think this should be moved to something along the lines of ABA on television. There are plenty of sources covering the broadcasters, several of which are RS, but not as a group per se. I'd look to get rid of the list elements here and work on improving the prose here as I think there is some great info here that should be kept. Let'srun (talk) 16:46, 6 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.