NBC Hopes That Nostalgia, Tech and a Superstar Talent Pool Can Drive Its NBA Hoop Dreams

Back when Adam Silver was a young executive at the NBA, the future commissioner would occasionally venture over to 30 Rockefeller Plaza, where NBC Sports chief Dick Ebersol held court.

“He famously had a sign behind his desk that said ‘storytelling.’ It was just a reminder to people. I think that storytelling is just as important today … as it was 30 years ago,” Silver recalls. “A lot of the people that we’re going to be working with at NBC were there just as I was 30 years ago in the early days of the NBC-NBA relationship. So there’s a tremendous sense of partnership around the table.”

23 years after it last aired an NBA game, NBC is back in business with the league, with the NBA on NBC making its return to TV tonight, and the companies plan to lean into that nostalgia. “Roundball Rock,” the iconic theme song composed by John Tesh, will be back, and Jim Fagan, the late voiceover announcer, will have his voice brought back thanks to the power of generative AI technology.

“Sam [Flood, NBC Sports’ executive producer] and I talked about going down the rabbit hole of YouTube videos to see how NBC produced it back then,” recalls NBC Sports president Rick Cordella. “And it’s different, not necessarily better or worse than the current broadcast, but just different. So we’re gonna bring a lot of that back.”

But alongside the vintage NBA on NBC callbacks, the company’s new NBA deal is enormously forward-looking. Peacock will stream all the games, and will have a slew of exclusive games this season.

The company showed off its new NBA studios at NBC Sports headquarters in Stamford, Connecticut earlier this month, with enormous LED walls that Marv Albert could have only dreamed of.

“We’re on a spaceship now, then we were on Apollo 1,” quips Flood, noting that the company will be able to produce about 35 percent of the NBA games remotely from the Stamford facility.

Peacock and streaming was important to the NBA too, a sport that is well aware of changing consumption habits, particularly among younger fans.

“Look at all the changes — Peacock most importantly — that have happened over the years, so I’m really looking forward to this partnership,” Silver says.

But the pressure will be on.

“Whatever we do, it has to be reliable, and it has to work all the time at scale, so it has to be incorporated into everything that we build,” says Jim Denney, chief product officer for direct-to-consumer at NBCUniversal.

But the talent will be just as important. And just as the original run back in the 1990s and early 2000s featured talent like Magic Johnson, Julius Irving and Pat Riley, the new roster is just as star-studded, with talent like Grant Hill, Vince Carter and Tracy McGrady.

And of course there’s Michael Jordan, the great of all time, whose contributions are still being kept under wraps aside from the fact that the network wants to make sure his appearances are special.

“We just did a class photo next door, and you know, you kind of pinch yourself,” Cordella said, gesturing to the NBA on NBC talent sitting at the side of the studio. “Look at the guys over here that are part of the NBC Sports team. Building a new property from scratch happens once in a career, and so we’re lucky to have these guys as part of us. We’re lucky to have the executives here in front of us. And we can’t wait for October 21.”