Mark Jones send‑off

Mark Jones signed off from ESPN on Sunday after 36 years, with tributes before and during the Magic-Celtics broadcast. (sports.yahoo.com) Before the 6 p.m. Eastern Time tip in Boston on April 12, Jones joined “Inside the NBA” and got a standing ovation from Ernie Johnson, Kenny Smith, Charles Barkley and Shaquille O’Neal. Jones said he had “a very full and a very heavy heart” as he left “the only place” he had worked in network television. (sports.yahoo.com) On the game broadcast, Doris Burke told Jones that “everybody involved, in the truck, here courtside” was honored to share his last ESPN assignment. Later in the fourth quarter, ESPN aired a montage marking his 36 years on the network. (si.com) Jones joined ESPN in 1990 and worked across National Basketball Association, college football, United Football League, Women’s National Basketball Association, college basketball and SportsCenter assignments. ESPN’s press biography says he also hosted NBA Finals coverage from 1991 to 1996 and again from 2007 to 2010. (espnpressroom.com) His exit closes one of ESPN’s longest current tenures. Sports Media Watch reported that Jones had been the network’s fifth-longest tenured broadcaster still on staff, behind Chris Berman, Dick Vitale, Mel Kiper Jr. and Chris Fowler. (sportsmediawatch.com) Jones said the move was his decision. He wrote on social media that it was “time to move on,” and Barry Jackson reported that ESPN told Jones he could have stayed if he wanted. (sportsmediawatch.com) He is not leaving broadcasting. Jones told the Sacramento Bee, as quoted by Yahoo Sports, that he plans to remain the Sacramento Kings’ local television play-by-play voice and said, “My plan is to be here for a long, long time.” (sports.yahoo.com) That made Sunday’s send-off less a retirement than a handoff: one last national broadcast, one more tribute package, and a final sign-off from a voice ESPN had used since the first year of the 1990s. (espnpressroom.com; si.com)