Dick Vitale and Charles Barkley to call 2 games together this year, including First Four matchup
Basketball broadcasting icons Dick Vitale and Charles Barkley will join forces to call two games this season, including one First Four matchup to begin the NCAA Tournament in March on TruTV, TNT Sports and ESPN announced Monday.
The 86-year-old Vitale has long wanted to work an NCAA Tournament game during his Hall of Fame career, and he will partner with Barkley and a play-by-player to be named later on the TruTV game.
First, Vitale and Barkley will analyze a game on ESPN on Saturday, Dec. 13, between Indiana and Kentucky. Dave O’Brien will serve as the play-by-play announcer.
The plan to put the pair together was borne out of Barkley and Vitale’s longtime friendship, and aided by the new partnerships between ESPN and TNT Sports. ESPN is licensing TNT Sports’ iconic “Inside The NBA” that stars Barkley. ESPN’s president of content, Burke Magnus, and TNT’s executive vice president and chief content officer, Craig Barry, gave the Barkley-Vitale idea the go-ahead.
For years and years, there has been talk about Vitale calling some NCAA Tournament games. While he was the lead analyst in the sport during the regular season and the conference tournaments on ESPN, March Madness belonged to CBS for decades before the network partnered with TNT Sports. An arrangement to allow Vitale to call an NCAA Tournament game was never completed. Two years ago, then-CBS Sports chairman Sean McManus offered Vitale a chance to call a game or two in the tournament, but Vitale declined. In 2006, ESPN also rejected a similar offer from McManus.
The duo has been hoping to work together for a long time. In 2013, Barkley told The Athletic’s Richard Deitsch, then of Sports Illustrated, that he wanted to team with Vitale.
“I told these guys one of my goals is to do a game with Dick Vitale,” Barkley said. “I would love to do a game with Dick Vitale because I think he has been great for college basketball. It’d be good for the game.”
Over the past four years, Vitale, who has raised millions for cancer research, has battled three forms of the disease. At times, it had impacted his vocal cords and his ability to speak.
He is back this season and will now end the year calling an NCAA Tournament game alongside Barkley.
