Few play-by-play announcers seem to enjoy their work more than Kevin Harlan. The Awful Announcing play-by-play broadcaster of the year is coming off another great season calling NFL games, including the radio call of Super Bowl LIX. He had an abundance of highlights during Championship Week and the NCAA Tournament, even saving a few lives in the process. Additionally, his recent NBA work with TNT Sports has been “GOOOOOOOOOOD!!!”
Harlan’s exceptional talent shines brightest during ad reads. He has the remarkable ability to transform what is typically filler content into a must-listen experience. This was evident once again Tuesday night during the Boston Celtics-New York Knicks game when he began reading ad copy for CarMax, and things took a funny turn.
Kevin Harlan is 1-of-1 🤣🤣🤣 pic.twitter.com/xiJdLz7jRY
— NBA on TNT (@NBAonTNT) April 9, 2025
“Tonight from Madison Square Garden, the NBA on TNT is brought to you by the new crispy tenders at CarMax,” Harlan proclaimed, quickly realizing that made no sense. “What? The way car buying should be. Can that be? What is that? Wait a minute. Hold on. Hold on. Are they serving tenders with cars? Are there tenders in the car? We just had the marriage of two different sponsors, and it was ugly. That just goes to show you. I literally will read anything they put in front of me without even looking, like, holy cow.” Later, Harlan tackled another CarMax ad read with creativity and flair.
Kevin Harlan just reinvented CarMax’s entire business model.
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing.bsky.social) April 8, 2025 at 6:35 PM
“Tonight from New York, the NBA on TNT is brought to you by CarMax, the way car buying… and tenders should be,” he said. “I just threw that into the tender. That was some poetic license on there. I thought I had to pay off the tender. Maybe they do. And if they don’t, they should.” If anyone in the CarMax marketing department is paying attention, they might just have a chicken tender cart on every lot by Wednesday morning.
