NBC hopes to score a marketing touchdown as it launches the first weekend of “.”
Yet NBC’s goal isn’t necessarily to call attention to the NFL, which started its 2025-26 season in earnest in recent days. During Sunday night’s match-up between the Baltimore Ravens and the Buffalo Bills, NBC revealed a new promo touting its coming coverage of the NBA, which bounces up in late October as part of a new 11-year rights deal struck between the basketball league and NBCUniversal.
In the promo, three members of the NBA champion Oklahoma City Thunder are stunned to find six of NBC’s new NBA analysts and commentators stealing the spotlight. Grant Hill, Vince Carter, Carmelo Anthony, Tracy McGrady, Reggie Miller and Jamal Crawford all get introduced to the crowd as “the starting lineup for your Team NBC and Peacock.” Meanwhile, Thunder players Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Jalen Williams, and Chet Holmgren have to wait to receive recognition. Finally, NBC Sports mainstay Mike Tirico tells the NBA stars, “That’s my team.”
“NBA player introductions have always played a big role in getting the arena crowd — and the people watching at home — excited for the game. Given NBC Sports’ legacy of celebrating player intros, we decided to have some fun and showcase the formidable lineup of NBA stars who will be part of the NBC and Peacock broadcast team, much to the confusion of Shai, Jalen, and Chet of the reigning NBA champion Oklahoma City Thunder,” says Joseph Lee, senior vice president of creative marketing for sports and entertainment at NBCUniversal, in a statement. “It’s an entertaining way to both introduce the NBC Sports talent and spotlight some of the great young NBA players in the league — a fun start to what promises to be a very exciting season of the NBA on NBC and Peacock.”
NBC has reason to get the word out about its looming NBA coverage. The network will, after the New Year, devote two nights a week of its schedule to NBA games, along with a separate night of telecasts that will stream only on Peacock. NBCU is believed to be spending an estimated $2.5 billion a year on a deal that gives it the chance to air 100 regular-season games; the NBA All-Star Game; and a passel of exclusive playoff games. In a sign of how much NBC wanted this sports deal, the company is paying more for NBA games than it is for its current NFL package, according to estimates from the independent analysis firm MoffettNathanson.
The company appears to be borrowing a strategy employed as it set about to win viewers to its coverage of 2024’s Paris Olympics. NBC whetted appetites for the event by releasing a long series of showy promos tapping celebrities including Paris Hilton, Dolly Parton and Sabrina Carpenter. Sports broadcasts represent the one programming format that continues to draw the large simultaneous audiences that advertisers crave and cable and satellite distributors need. NFL games and NHL match-ups have built-in fans, but the key to the future for NBC and its rivals will be luring in new viewers — audiences who may not be sports die-hards or local-team stans.
NBC hasn’t had rights to broadcast NBA games since 2002. On October 21, the promo reminds viewers, professional basketball will return. NBC and Peacock will offer a double-header on Tuesday, October 21 to launch the new effort, with the Houston Rockets playing the Thunder at 7:30 p.m. eastern, followed by the Golden State Warriors at the Los Angeles Lakers, . first Reigning NBA MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Kevin Durant, Stephen Curry, and LeBron James are among the stars who will launch the NBA’s long-awaited return to NBC — and its debut on Peacock — on Tuesday, Oct. 21, with an NBA Tip-Off doubleheader. A one-hour studio show, hosted by Maria Taylor with Anthony and Carter, launches at 6:30 p.m.
