Billy Packer is done with announcing. This officially makes the Final Four the best sporting event on the planet now.


http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/news/story?id=3485871

7/14/2008 9:49:52 AM

Only to be replaced with another retard.

7/14/2008 10:18:12 AM

YES!!!!! THANK YOU GOD!!!

7/14/2008 10:37:18 AM

he didn't really annoy me too much when it wasn't UNC playing, but nonetheless was still annoying

7/14/2008 10:44:50 AM

the most annoying thing packer did was call things out, while it was happening to try and look slick

"boy, they could really use a time out right about now" (coinciding with the coach standing up and beginning to signal for a timeout)
*whistle blows*
"and there it is"


"they need to get XXXX back into this game, to bring back ...."
(camera pans and XXXX is already sitting at the scorer's table)

7/14/2008 10:46:33 AM

yeah

7/14/2008 10:47:03 AM

praise jesus

7/14/2008 11:01:09 AM

Thank you sports Gods!!!

7/14/2008 11:02:36 AM

this is a good thing, but Clark Kellog isn't much better

7/14/2008 11:04:00 AM

iirc, it was Kellog who had a bracket a couple years back with every favorite advancing in every round, lol

7/14/2008 11:10:45 AM

Clark Kellog is just as bad. He has no idea what he is talkin about half the time.

7/14/2008 11:21:33 AM

i would love for announcer-less sportscasts to make a return

7/14/2008 11:50:19 AM

^, ^^, ^^^, ^^^^, ^^^^^, etc


!!!!!!!

7/14/2008 12:13:35 PM

Just as long as they don't get Mike Patrick to replace him.

7/14/2008 12:26:13 PM

Didn't read the article, but will he still be doing LF/JP (whatever it is now) games? If so, we still have to deal with him.

V Dear Lord, Packer and Vitale? Just the thought of that scares me.

[Edited on July 14, 2008 at 1:24 PM. Reason : no]

7/14/2008 1:19:03 PM

you guys make it sound like we'll never hear from him again

Quote :

"Packer, 68, will leave CBS after 27 years to pursue "other projects in basketball," according to The Miami Herald."

ESPN?

7/14/2008 1:19:15 PM

1. Steve Lavin
2. billy packer
3. Dick Vitale

7/14/2008 1:42:49 PM

the fact he's called every ncaa final four for so many years is impressive though

no matter how much you hate him

7/14/2008 1:44:13 PM

I didn't like how he'd find one thing in the first few minutes of a game and harp on it throughout the entire game, but I also think he's not NEARLY as bad as some of you are making him out to be...first off he had a little bit of anti-UNC bias...2nd neither his voice nor anyone's voice could ever get as annoying as Vitale's...when Vitale hangs it up, I will throw a fucking party...man the first couple months of last season were great until he came back...and spare me about his passion and love for Jimmy V

7/14/2008 1:55:04 PM

Quote :

"Four years earlier, he apologized on the air after he was criticized for referring to then-Georgetown guard Allen Iverson as a "tough little monkey.""

Ha...I forgot about this

7/14/2008 2:16:14 PM

he'll probably end up at Raycom so we'll hear him even more

7/14/2008 2:19:21 PM

Mark Packer (his son) was just saying on his radio show that Billy was done with broadcasting for good...sounds like its coming from a legit source

7/14/2008 5:56:04 PM

I'd rather have Packer over boring-ass Clark Kellogg.

7/14/2008 5:58:35 PM

Every NCAA game should be done by Ian Eagle and Bill Rafferty.

7/14/2008 6:00:00 PM

Every NCAA game should be done by Ian Eagle and Bill Rafferty Gus Jonnson.

7/14/2008 6:31:26 PM

Every NCAA game should be done by Bill Walton or Gus Johnson

7/14/2008 6:32:51 PM

Every NCAA game should have no commentators on the SAP channel with just game sound

7/14/2008 6:35:15 PM

Quote :

"V Dear Lord, Packer and Vitale? Just the thought of that scares me."

you do know they absolutely hate each other, right?

7/14/2008 7:30:41 PM

oh i think that'd would actually be really really entertaining

7/14/2008 10:40:30 PM

I hate Packer as much as the next guy, but this isn't that much of an improvement if we're still going to have to listen to Jim Nantz being more excited about Masters promos than the game going on.

7/14/2008 10:54:47 PM

My petition worked!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


http://www.thespinzone.com/packerpetition.php

7/15/2008 1:07:51 AM

You guys are gay.

Packer is a huge asshole but he calls a game very well.

He's one of the few left who will be honest and call people out for mistakes.

I see people make egregious errors all the time and all the announcers can talk about is some dunk they made three weeks ago or some cousin they have that has downs syndrome.

Billy Packer is the kind of announcer that will blatantly call people out for not playing well and that is what I want to hear. Not this tripe bullshit that dominates the airwaves.

He also wrote one of the greatest books ever written "Hoops".

Even still I hate him he's an arrogrant prick.

[Edited on July 15, 2008 at 1:28 AM. Reason : a]

7/15/2008 1:28:34 AM

^[agree]

7/15/2008 11:01:44 AM

He told viewers of the Kansas/UNC game that it was over with 7 minutes left in the first half and implied they should change the channel. I thought this was gonna happen a lot sooner.

7/15/2008 11:10:29 AM

Billy Packer is out like NC State in the first round of the ACC tourney

7/15/2008 11:18:16 AM

it's like bomani jones said

how is it that this man has been calling final fours for 34 years and nobody I know likes him?

It's like how the new kids on the block sold 8 million records and nobody admits to liking them.

7/16/2008 9:51:28 AM

Oh, I'll be the first to admit I was all about NKOTB in sixth grade.

7/16/2008 10:11:06 AM

packer was/is still a tool

don't try to turn the tables on this thread

7/16/2008 10:58:07 AM

As a basketball fan, i'm glad he's gone.

As a State fan, I am saddened that now all I've got to bitch about is Dickie V and the Refs, they both get old. Packer was always good for providing us a place to direct our ire.

Oh, and he should be in the HoF regardless of how many people he pissed off.

7/16/2008 12:11:43 PM

Quote :

"So let's just come out and say it: Billy Packer will not be missed. He is a crotchety asshole whose basketball broadcasts too often were joyless exercises in petty criticism and fan infuriation. Unquestionably, he understood his subjects, but how sad is the rest of the "analyst" profession that CBS and other media impresarios happily paid such a high price for Packer's basketball ruminations? (To say nothing of the fact that he got plenty of stuff wrong--names, sequences of events, what should have been called, the entire Gerald Henderson fiasco--and never apologized or accepted badgering for it.) And yes, the Bangin' has not been silent on this matter; I am one whose opinion of Packer is firmly established. I waited a few days to mention this serenditpitous happening because I was interested in how Packer's media brethren would send him off. Agenda-setting outlets and writers usually don't criticize their own as openly as is deserved. And over the years, despite impassioned fan protest to the contrary, many writers had lionized Packer as an avatar in his field. When contrasted with Dick Vitale's substanceless, discursive cheerleading or Digger Phelp's broken English and low-level dimentia, it seemed reasonable enough to acknowledge Packer's superior analytical ability. (Though Packer never served as an observer for Cambodian elections. Tielight that!) But it also always seemed to neglect reality in full, and it never captured the deep loathing common among so many fans. Thus, reading the mainstream media's sendoff has been somewhat gratifying. As expected, the institutions of record have been disappointingly hunkeydorey in their treatment of Billy's retirement. Reading some of these stories, one gets the impression that college basketball has lost a cherished contributor whose insight and careful consideration of the game far outweighed whatever forgivable shortcomings occasionally presented themselves. Says an apologetic and impressed Michael Wilbon: I'd gladly put up with all of Packer's agendas and his affiliations because when he sat to call a game he threw himself into it and made the experience better for anybody who cared about the game, if less so the three-ring circus that has come to surround college basketball. The New York Times' Richard Sandomir brushed over the "occasionally controversial" Packer's missteps and focused on the transactional nature of the news: Packer out, Kellogg in, Anthony waiting. USA Today was more in-depth, though I learned more about Packer's absolutely insane personal life than his legacy as a broadcaster. (A Psychic? No typing or interwebs? Is this Billy Packer or John McCain?) Only Diane Pucin of the LA Times hit us with some truth. But things got really good when I read more. The local press--writers who likely don't know Packer, don't harbor realistic hopes of one day landing on network television, and don't have the same fealty to media overlords--went to work on Packer. The Philadelphia Daily News; the Cleveland County (NC) Star; the Arkansas Democrat Gazzette. How good does it feel to finally see someone write what so many fans have felt for a long time? Awful Announcing wrote this satisfying summary of Packer's awfulness more than a year ago, and it finally is time for more media folks to accept what had become evident to so many fans who aren't distracted by the milieu of professional journalism and the lure of fame: Packer was boorish and ruined the experience. No amount of technical insight should excuse that stark bottom line. As King Kaufman noted, "It's hard to think of another sports broadcasting figure of Packer's stature and tenure who's inspired as little affection as he has." Maybe that should have been instructive for CBS and Packer's loyalist long ago. Good riddance to Billy Packer. He will not be missed."

http://straightbangin.blogspot.com/2008/07/billy-packers-tyranny-has-ended-if-only.html

7/16/2008 1:38:36 PM

THANK YOU GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

7/16/2008 9:40:35 PM

Quote :

"Every NCAA game should have no commentators on the SAP channel with just game sound"

7/17/2008 7:56:32 AM

He owns a country club in my county.

He will probably spend a lot more time here now.

7/17/2008 10:13:24 AM

whats so bad about Billy Packer

Vitale is 10000x worse, so i cant even get mad at Packer based on how good he is relative to Vitale

7/17/2008 10:43:48 AM

I would take vitale over packer any day. packer is about the only announcer where i have actually turned down the volume so I could actually just watch the game.

7/17/2008 8:38:12 PM