HOUSTON – The Houston Rockets today announced their broadcast teams for the upcoming 2021-22 NBA season. Changes include Craig Ackerman assuming full-time play-by-play duties for AT&T SportsNet, the television home of the Houston Rockets, plus 10-year NBA veteran Ryan Hollins joining Ackerman as the TV color commentator, and former Rocket Mario Elie bolstering AT&T SportsNet’s coverage. In addition, Matt Thomas will become the Rockets full-time radio voice.
“We hope Rockets fans are as excited as we are to watch the journey of our young players this season,” said Rockets President of Business Operations Gretchen Sheirr. “We worked with AT&T SportsNet and SportsTalk 790 to put together broadcast teams that will add appreciation and knowledge to the viewing and listening experience.”
Ackerman spent the past five seasons working mostly road games for AT&T SportsNet and home games for the Rockets Radio Network. He has been with the Rockets organization since 1994 and was named their radio play-by-play announcer heading into the 2008-09 season.
Hollins joins the broadcast team from California where he has worked as a game analyst for CBS and as a studio analyst for Los Angeles Clippers games. He has also worked as an analyst for ESPN and appeared on various programming for them, including SportsCenter and First Take, and has co-hosted “The Opinionated 7-Footers” podcast for the past year.
Cayleigh Griffin returns for her third season as the Rockets sideline reporter and host of the weekly magazine show, “Rockets All Access.”
Once again this season, AT&T SportsNet’s pregame, halftime, and postgame coverage will include Kevin Eschenfelder along with Rockets great and Hall of Famer Calvin Murphy.
New this season, Rockets coverage will include reoccurring appearances by Mario Elie, who played in the NBA for 11 seasons and won two championships with Houston and one with San Antonio before spending 10 seasons as an assistant coach.
Thomas split the past five seasons between handling radio broadcasts for road games and serving as the public address announcer for home games. He hosts the "The Matt Thomas Show" which airs daily on SportsTalk 790. Returning with Thomas to the Rockets Radio Network are the co-hosts of SportsTalk 790’s “A-Team” show, Adam Wexler and Adam Clanton. The duo shares duties as home game analysts and as hosts for pregame, halftime, and postgame content.
The Rockets Spanish radio broadcast will continue to be led on TUDN 1010 a.m. by Adrian Chavarria, who is entering his 26th season as the play-by-play voice. The University of Houston product is on pace to surpass 2,000 broadcasts of regular season Rockets games in 2022. Throughout his career, Chavarria has also broadcast games in Spanish for the Dallas Cowboys, Chicago Bears, Dallas Mavericks, and Houston Astros.