ESPN play-by-play announcer Mark Jones uses unique vocabulary during NBA games that can prompt viewers to grab a dictionary. When asked about ESPN’s inaugural all-Black staffed NBA game broadcast and production team for Wednesday’s game between the San Antonio Spurs and Atlanta Hawks (7 p.m. ET, ESPN), Jones became a little emotional when offering words to describe it.
“Serendipity. Joy. I would say it would be along those lines,” Jones, 63, recently told Andscape. “Prestigious. Serendipity comes to mind because I’ll be in a state of euphoria the whole day. To be able to be side by side with family, with culture, [it’s] just delightfully diverse.”
The production, a first-ever idea of its kind at ESPN and part of its Black History Always celebration, was conceived by Rodney Vaughn, a remote producer at ESPN. The objective is to highlight African American contributions to sports broadcasting both on-air and behind the scenes, engage students and emerging talent from Clark Atlanta University’s mass media program and to produce a seamless broadcast with compelling elements and a strong companion narrative.
Since 1990, Jones has been a play-by-play commentator for ESPN’s NBA and college football coverage and has also worked on the WNBA, NBA Finals, and men’s and women’s college basketball. The Toronto native hosted ESPN’s SportsCenter coverage of the NBA Finals from 1991-96 and 2007-2010 and called play-by-play for the 2011 NBA Finals for ESPN 3D. He has also hosted ESPN’s coverage of NBA All-Star weekend, the NBA draft lottery, the NBA draft and hosted ESPN’s NBA Today show. Jones was also a star on York University’s basketball team, earning All-Conference recognition and played for Canada in international competition.
The following is a Q&A with Jones with Andscape about the importance and history of the all-Black ESPN production, the unique story of he got into the sports play-by-play business, the state of Black play-by-play announcers, the Spurs-Hawks matchup, his family members in basketball media, the importance of mentoring and much more.

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What are your thoughts on this historical broadcast?
After doing this for 34 years, it’s nice to be able to stumble onto something new and wonderful like this. It’s going to be an all-Black production crew from the forward-facing people, from the announcing talent, to people behind the scenes — producer, director, associate producer, associate director, and on down the line right down to statistician and stage manager. We will have an all-Black production crew.
And I have to say this, as I walk into State Farm Arena [in Atlanta] on that day, my heart will be full. My heart will be very grateful. My heart will be very proud because in 34 years of doing this, I’ve never been a part of such a unique broadcast with such talent in front of and behind the cameras. I’ve called a couple games in the NBA Finals, and this is right up there in terms of career accomplishments and significance as well.
Any significance to you of it being in Atlanta as well?
In the shadows of the Civil Rights Movement and with Dr. Martin Luther King, Ebenezer Baptist Church is right down the street. It’s all going to be a great confluence of a celebration of Black History Month to see that Dr. King’s dream has at least partially come to fruition in being able to have people judged by our talents — our vast talents, our immense talents, our boundless talents — and not by the color of our skin. I think Dr. King would have been very pleased to know that it’s happening right in his own backyard in Atlanta.
A lot of people don’t know about you is that you’re from Toronto and you also played college basketball at York University. How much does having played college basketball help you in analyzing the game now?
I actually represented Canada in several international basketball competitions from the time I was a teenager up until the time I was probably 20 years old. Played my collegiate basketball at York University in Toronto. And we’ve seen the talent that’s come out of that city lately. There’s always been a great pipeline of talent coming out of Toronto. But I think having been right in the guts of the game, being attuned to a lot of the nuances of the game has helped me in my play-by-play documenting the game. And when you are able to dissect it on a player level, I think it helps. I stay in my lane as the play-by-play guy, but I’m able to lead my analyst in a direction that is probably, I would say with modesty, on a little bit of a higher plain having played the game.
To be able to say, ‘Hey Richard, they’ve been coming off that pindown on the baseline a lot. Why is it working so well?’ Being able to say, ‘Hey Richard, this horns set that they’re running with two guys at the elbows, why is that not working for them right now?’ To be able to know that I’ve been on the floor, played and to recognize at a different level what’s happening has been a bit of an advantage.
When did you decide that you want to go into sports journalism?
I grew up a huge basketball fan. I was growing up in Toronto. It was the Buffalo Braves. It was Bob McAdoo. It was Bird Averitt, it was Ernie DiGregorio, and I grew up on the Buffalo Braves and their battles against the [Boston] Celtics back in the days. We would always get the television stations from Buffalo, New York, and that was their NBA team. So, they left and became the San Diego Clippers before they became the Los Angeles Clippers.
But my love for basketball in particular was always a thing from the time that I was a young boy. Coming home from church racing home from the 12 o’clock service to make sure that my brother and I were in front of the TV at 1 o’clock to watch the Celtics play against the [Philadelphia] 76ers and Dr. J [Julius Erving]. That really helped my development for my love of sports.
When I played my last game at York University, we were eliminated in the conference championship game. I was the Player of the Game. I was being interviewed by a reporter whose name was Peter Watts, and after we finished the interview, I said, ‘Hey, Mr. Watts, man, I’m a senior. My basketball career is over.’ I didn’t think I was going to go play overseas in Europe. I said, ‘Do you have any jobs at your television station for a guy like me?’ And he said, ‘Young man, I want you to call me Monday morning at 9 a.m.’ So, I picked up the phone Monday morning at 8:59 and gave him a call. I got an interview as an editorial assistant, basically just watching games, logging games at TSN [The Sports Network]. And that was kind of the start of it for me.
I always knew that I wanted to be involved in sports in my life, but that gave me an opportunity. And I worked my way up from making $35 a day watching basketball games. I thought I was in heaven, man, because I’m getting to watch NBA games from 7 o’clock until 2 a.m. in the morning to write up highlight packages for the Sports Center show that night, and I’m getting paid money for it. So, that to me was kind of something that propelled me to want to go even a little bit further.
Two years later, one of the reporters that had been on the beat at TSN just in the middle of the day up and quit, and they needed somebody to go down to the arena to do some interviews with the hockey team there, the Toronto Maple Leafs. And they always knew that I was eager. So, it was like, ‘Hey, call Mark Jones. He’ll go do this interview.’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, I’ll go.’ Jumped into the car, went down the interview, wrote up some voice tracks, went into the edit booth where the editor slapped it all together, did a standup on camera and they loved it. And that was the beginning of my sports reporter career.
How did you make the transition to play by play?
I went from sports reporter, to field reporter, to anchor, to having anchored the NBA Countdown show for a number of years and various iterations of it. I had a lot of fun doing that because that was like a highlight show. That was what I was doing at TSN and also SportsCenter at ESPN. But there became a window available for me to call games. And with the support of various people at ESPN, they gave me the play-by-play headset. And that transition was even better for me because it put me right in front of the athletes. It put me at the game.
The studio is fantastic. I enjoyed the studio and a lot of people love the studio, but being at the game courtside was something that really kind of got my juices going. So, that transition was fun. It taught me how to use a different type of skillset to be able to document the game in a very entertaining and informational fashion; that is really the essence of the job. And I like to bring my own type of vernacular to it too, which makes it even more fun.

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Speaking of the vernacular, where did you get your incredible vocabulary from? And then two, how do you keep up on what the latest rap song is at your young age?
People strangely enough think it’s different and it’s weird, but it’s not for me. f I showed you my playlist right now, it would have Moneybagg Yo. It would have Finesse2tymes. I just got up on a little bit of Larry June — my daughter got me up on Larry June. Bay Area dude. It would have a lot of BossMan Dlow. So that’s always who I’ve been. I’ve always enjoyed the hip-hop culture, so for me to be calling a basketball game and say, ‘Oh man, Anthony Edwards looked at his wrist and said he got time today.’ I’d just like to have fun wordplay when I’m doing a broadcast. That’s half of it.
The other half of it is my vocabulary has always been something that I’ve always enjoyed using. My father was very fluent, the late great Hugh Jones, my dad was very fluent in Latin. He was fluent in Spanish, and he obviously spoke English. My grandfather was an English teacher, so languages were always big in our household. And growing up, if my brother and I wanted to ask what a certain word meant, it meant we were going to get a five-minute lecture from my father about the Latin root of the word and the Spanish root of the word, and how to use it in English. So, I always like to say, ‘Man, people use 20 percent of the words in the English language. I like to use 21.’
What do you think of the state of Black play-by-play announcers in major sports?
We could use more. I get a little disappointed when I see the dearth of Black play-by-play announcers. I equate the play-by-play announcer to the point guard in basketball or the quarterback, even, in football. Your play-by-play announcer is the guy that drives a lot of the narratives, the predominant storyteller of a broadcast to be able to take the player out of the jersey, humanize him and make the fans connect and cheer for that said player. We need more Black play-by-play announcers, I’ll just say that. People will look at a booth and see a white person and a Black person side by side and wonder what the issue is.
I think it can be very convenient at times to have a Black analyst who’s a former player. But in terms of having that Black quarterback as your play-by-play guy, we can be a little bit more intentional about putting a person of color in that role. They drive the narratives a lot of time and tell the stories. When it comes to the NBA, 70 percent of the NBA is Black. I spend my summers in the gyms watching a lot of the players in the NBA work out. I’m sitting beside them, their trainers, their agents and their moms and their dads and girlfriends and family members. So, there is a natural connection there. And to be able to get those organic stories across from the play-by-play chair, that’s a wonderful asset for me to have. Play-by-play announcing across the NBA and across sports would benefit from having more Black play-by-play announcing.
What do you tell an aspiring Black journalist or journalist of color who aspires to be in your role one day?
The growth in that role, it’s happening. Maybe a little bit slowly right now, but I think it’s happening. We’ve got young Black men out there who are extremely talented doing the job, and we just need more. Tiffany Greene, Michael Grady, Eric Collins. Chris Miller with the Washington Wizards. We have shown that Black folks can do this and do it at an extremely high level. I would put any of those aforementioned people against anybody in terms of talent. In terms of growing it, I think it’s just a matter of being out front and having visibility.
I grew up watching Bryant Gumbel and James Brown, right? And I’ll never forget meeting Bryant Gumbel in Toronto. He was covering the Major League Baseball playoffs, and I was a cub reporter covering the ALCS [American League Championship Series] at the time. And I walked up into him and introduced myself. I said, ‘Mr. Gumbel, my name’s Mark Jones. I work here at TSN in Toronto. I would love to do what you do someday.’ And he looked me dead in my eye and said in the clubhouse, ‘Young man, I watched your sportscast last night. I think you’re ready right now.’ And he blew me away with that story. He probably won’t remember it, but I do, because now whenever young Black men come up to me and talk about wanting to do play-by-play like I’m doing right now, I make sure to take the time to inspire them and give them a few words of encouragement and a roadmap on how to get to where I’m at right now.
Your brother Paul Jones is a radio analyst for the Toronto Raptors and NBA TV Canada. Your daughter Sophia is a former San Jose State women’s basketball player who is now a color analyst for University of San Francisco women’s basketball. And you have a goddaughter and niece, Justine Jones, who is in the Los Angeles Clippers’ media relations department. Can you talk about sports media being in the family blood?
Our homes stay on one channel, ESPN and NBA TV, and that’s it. We’re a sports family, basketball family through and through. My brother and I grew up in front of the television watching sports all the time. In particular, the NBA, we would go to basketball camps. My brother played collegiate basketball at York University. He was part of the original broadcast team for the Toronto Raptors when they first came into existence in Toronto. And it just became a natural career progression for him. I used to call him ‘Crazy Joe Clark’ because he used to be a school principal, and that’s the way he operated. But he’s taken that kind of enthusiasm and direction and energy into broadcasting, and he does NBA TV Canada. He does the radio commentary for the Toronto Raptors, has been doing it from Day 1, and there’s nobody more up to speed and has the pulse of the Toronto Raptors more than Paul Desmond Jones.
My older brother, I’m really proud of him, and he does a fantastic job. And my daughter, Sophia, she grew up sitting beside my wife and I, watching NBA games deep into the night. So getting into basketball commentary and a sideline reporting role and analyst role for the women’s basketball team and the men’s basketball team at the University of San Francisco is something that she couldn’t wait to do to get out of school and do. And she’s doing that now, and it’s nice to be able to mentor her because she did that on her own. I didn’t push her towards that… She’s well on her way.
And my goddaughter, my niece, Justine Jones, man, she’s talented, former volleyball player at York University, and after some years with the Raptors now with the Los Angeles Clippers, and she’s doing the best notes in the business right now. She’s very conscientious and very detailed. She’s got that athlete mentality and taking that to the Los Angeles Clippers with her and making that department even better.
How fun is it to call a 7-foot-5 Victor Wembanyama and sharpshooter Trae Young game?
Watching Victor Wembanyama play basketball now is something still that we’re all getting used to me included in terms of some of the distance that he covers on a simple mid-post drop step, he can execute that drop step from the second box as opposed to the lower box like most guys. The ground that he covers is crazy. And to watch him at times throw the ball off the backboard and to himself and slam at home is something that I think as a play-by-play announcer, I’m still getting used to it. And I know, I think the league at whole is, too. His 3-point shooting is something that is breathtaking too. I don’t know if we’ve ever seen a guy with that kind of size, that kind of skill, that kind of shooting range. And to watch him operate right now with the San Antonio Spurs with just a few guardrails to watch him develop into what he’s ultimately going to be is fun.
I’m very fortunate and grateful, Marc, to be able to say that years from now, we saw him as a rookie. We saw him as a second-year player. In short time this league is going to be his. He’s changed the equation of basketball at both ends of the floor, too, averaging five blocks per game. And I think it’s not going to be too soon before the San Antonio Spurs are going to be back to their normal contending selves.
As for the Atlanta Hawks man, when you’re watching a Hawks game, you got to keep your eye on Trae Young. I don’t think there is a better pick-and-roll player in the NBA right now. I don’t think there’s a player that throws lob passes any better and shoots floaters any better than he does right now. And I like the way this year that he’s trusted his teammates a little bit more. I think he’s pulled back on some of his aggression offensively to the benefit of the team. And he’s used wonderful discernment and decision making. It looks like it’s going to be a fantastic matchup between these two teams. And anytime Trae Young is on the floor, you got to make sure that you’re picking him up early and you’re not looking down at your notes when he crosses midcourt because he’s liable to pull at any time. And that Atlanta crowd is always live, too. I like coming to Atlanta games, right, because you going to see 2 Chainz, you can see Lil Boosie, you might see a few other stars and celebrities in the crowd courtside.
With your years of working at ESPN and also time working in the NBA, would becoming the first individual Black person to win the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame Curt Gowdy Award in electronic media mean something to you?
That would be an incredibly highly esteemed honor. It goes without saying I would love that. I would be extremely honored to even be nominated for the Gowdy Award to be able to show the young Black men and women coming up behind me that this is something that is attainable. To be recognized by your peers in the business at the height of the business is an incredible honor. I would certainly cherish that. I think about some of the greats that have won that award. And to be the first Black person on the microphone and play-by-play chair doing it would be wonderful.