You could get a million guesses, and you wouldn’t probably land on an ex-MLB All-Star cohosting an NBA altcast with Jamal Crawford, but anything goes in 2025.
That’s not a slight at former St. Louis Cardinals and Chicago Cubs outfielder Dexter Fowler, who does great work and is definitely a rising star on the MLB broadcasting side. But this? This is just sheer randomness that seemingly came out of nowhere.
It’s not immediately clear what connections—if any—Fowler maintains to the Thursday matchup between the Minnesota Timberwolves and Los Angeles Lakers. His last MLB appearance came with the Los Angeles Angels in 2021, but he was born and raised in Georgia, drafted by the Colorado Rockies straight out of high school and has no tangible connections to the NBA besides being a professional athlete himself.
But none of that will prevent him from being alongside Crawford as the NBA adds an alternate stream to its league pass games, dubbed “Courtside Crawsover.”
With altcasts all the rage, even as Awful Announcing’s Drew Lerner opines about their oversaturation and wonders who exactly these are for, that hasn’t stopped the NBA from going full-steam ahead with Crawford and Fowler. According to USA Today, the telecast will be available on NBA League Pass come Thursday and will also feature guests that transcend sports and pop culture, such as the rapper Wale and former NBA All-Star Blake Griffin.
Thursday’s pilot episode gives the NBA a chance to take on the ManningCast model — and it’s doing so with Jamal Crawford, a 20-year NBA veteran who played for nine teams and earned his place as one of the best sixth men in history. Before the season began, Crawford made a surprise exit from TNT, where he’d served as both a game and studio analyst since 2023.
He turned down their contract offer to explore other broadcasting opportunities, including a new analyst role with NBC.
While at TNT, he received a Conference Finals assignment with Reggie Miller and Kevin Harlan last year, showing how highly his work has been regarded. There’s a reason why he was named one of AA’s rising sports media stars earlier this year.
Dexter Fowler severing as Jamal Crawford’s cohost is an unexpected risk, and yet, it seems like one the NBA feels it needs to take to differentiate itself from a genre that’s grown increasingly stale very quickly.