Jazz announce broadcast crews, schedule for 2015-16 season


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SALT LAKE CITY — The Utah Jazz released the broadcasting information for the 2015-16 season Tuesday, with the hosts, analysts and schedule being largely the same as previous seasons.

Craig Bolerjack and Matt Harpring will continue to be the main play-by-play and color commentary voices for the games on ROOT Sports. Bolerjack has been play-by-play man for 11 years and is generally respected around the league as a quality voice.

Bolerjack announced on July 29 that he would not be renewing his college football announcing contract with Fox, which should mean Bolerjack being available for more Jazz games. Last season, the frequency of time Steve Brown ran play-by-play frustrated Jazz fans. Brown has a tendency to lose the flow of games and makes glaring errors in play-by-play, which can be distracting to TV audiences.

Harpring is based in Atlanta, Georgia, which presents some scheduling problems for the Jazz broadcast team. Tuesday's press release promised Harpring for only "a majority of ROOT Sports telecasts." Whenever Harpring is out, Ron Boone will fill in as television play-by-play man.

With the spread of NBA League Pass, fans around the league now have an opportunity to listen to local broadcast teams, and, well, the league's opinion of Harpring is mixed. Harpring is generally known as a "homer" when calling Jazz games, which usually turns off neutrals.

Brown will be the sideline reporter for Jazz home games.

The pre-game and halftime shows will continue to be hosted by Alema Harrington, with analysts Thurl Bailey, former assistant coach Phil Johnson, and Ron Boone.

Eighty-one regular season games will be broadcast by ROOT Sports, with one game exclusively scheduled to be broadcast by TNT. On the other hand, ROOT Sports is only showing four of the seven preseason Jazz games: Oct. 4 and 6 in Hawaii against the Los Angeles Lakers and two home games against Portland on Oct. 12 and Oklahoma City on Oct. 20.

That means Jazz fans may have no way to watch three games of the preseason, unless those games are broadcast by those opponents' TV teams. Last season, the Jazz ran an online stream of the last home preseason game. An inquiry to Jazz PR about whether or not that would occur for this season was not immediately returned.

On the radio side, David Locke will call play-by-play on 1280 AM and 97.5 FM for the seventh straight season, usually alongside Boone as analyst. Locke brings a high level of passion to the calls, which are sometimes over-the-top, along with some interesting statistical tidbits during the broadcast.

Britton Johnsen, former Utah basketball star, will host 1280's halftime shows, with Spence Checketts, Tony Parks and Jake Scott as analysts.

Last season, when Boone moved to TV, Locke would generally call games on the radio by himself. It might be an interesting opportunity for the Jazz to cultivate rising color commentary talent, though, by filling that analyst spot next to Locke in Boone's absence with Parks, Scott or a rotating cast of guests.

Nelson Moran and Isidro Lopez will continue to run the Jazz's Spanish-language radio broadcasts on 1600 AM. Nicole Hernandez will continue to be courtside reporter and fill in for Lopez or Moran as needed.

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Andy Larsen

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