NBC, Seeking Big NBA Bounce, Needs to Turbocharge Cable Games

When basketball great Reggie Miller thinks about NBC’s long history of televising NBA games starting in the 1990s, “my hands start to tremble,” he confides recently during a press conference. “As a player, I had some of my best moments” on NBC, he acknowledged, and “my hands still get sweaty” when the memories return.

Now a lot of people are hoping Miller’s hands will act up when he thinks of the NBA on NBC over the next decade.

Like the former Indiana Pacer, a massive clutch of NBA games are coming to NBC from Warner Bros. Discovery’s TNT, where they had been shown for nearly 40 years (and where Miller once helped explain game action before joining NBC). And NBC hopes to turbocharge the matchups with the bigger potential audience that executives hope will find them on a broadcast network.

“You have a certain demographic that may not be watching NBA games,” says Rick Cordella, president of NBC Sports. “You get them familiar with the players and personalities, and that may translate to broadcast ratings.”

For NBCUniversal, the NBA isn’t just something that takes place on the court. Done right, the new basketball contract could help transform the company, from one best known for “Law & Order” and “Saturday Night Live” to an entity as closely associated with sports as ESPN or Fox. In the streaming era, live sports are the one programming format still reeling in the large simultaneous audiences that advertisers and distributors crave, and generating the kind of chatter on social media that unites crowds across disparate screens. NBC was already in business with the NFL and major golf leagues, but a wave of basketball games and a soon-to-be-announced pact with Major League Baseball will help the company burnish much more sports cred just as it spins off most of its cable networks into a separate company, while pushing its Peacock streaming service to get as much scale as those operated by rivals.

Meanwhile, the NBA, like other leagues, is eager to get more games on broadcast networks, after years of having only a handful on ABC. Adam Silver, the NBA’s Commissioner, says he expects to see all three rights-holders, NBC, Disney and Amazon, experiment with streaming and interactive features that will make the viewing experience more customized for each member of the audience through interactive features. But getting games on broadcast will only bring a bigger spotlight to the sport – and, he believes, NBC. “Live sports are incredible differentiators,” he says, which is why “it makes sense” for the media companies to be making such a large investment to secure rights.

And yet, the league has been struggling with viewership. The average audience watching NBA games across Warner properties continued to decline across three seasons, according to data from Nielsen, even though viewership for the NBA All-Star Game hit a new peak earlier this year. The average viewership for NBA games across TNT and TruTV in the most recent season stood at about 1.24 million. Viewership for those games in the 2022-2023 seasons when they were shown only on TNT came to about 1.36 million.

Reggie Miller’s trembling hands are the least of NBC’s worries.

NBC’s new bid to boost basketball fandom comes after a heady run at the Paris Olympics, which got a boost by relying on new elements tied to celebrity and popular culture. The extravaganza was the first in years to enjoy the viewership on both TV and streaming that people come to expect of the event after a fallow period during which NBC was plagued by Asia time-slot challenges and the coronavirus pandemic, among other factors.

NBC couldn’t let the Olympics falter. The Games cost parent company Comcast $7.75 billion in licensing fees between 2021 and 2032, and another $3 billion has already been committed through 2036. Now the NBA is creating a similar mandate for the network, which by next year will air professional basketball in primetime on two different nights a week, fundamentally altering its reliance on traditional scripted programming during the year. NBCUniversal is believed to be paying the NBA an estimated $2.5 billion a year for the chance to air 100 regular-season games; the NBA All-Star Game; and a passel of exclusive first-round 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.

“Clearly, NBC is investing heavily given the talent they have hired, the production innovations they’re introducing, and the marketing and promotion already rolled out,” says Daniel Cohen, executive vice president of global media rights at sports-and-talent consultancy Octagon.

NBC’s first NBA test comes on Tuesday, when it unveils the first in a series of doubleheaders: a game from East Coast markets followed by one from West Coast markets. NBC stations will show the match-up closest to their time zone, but NBA die-hards can watch both, no matter where they live, through Peacock. It’s not the first time a media company has tried such a maneuver, says Cordella, but it may be the first time one has tried it during weekday primetime. NBC believes the plan will bring in large groups of more engaged fans across the nation, who will want to watch a team that is closer to the region in which they live.

The Tuesday-njght games will help set the tone for even bigger efforts. Peacock will feature NBA games on Monday nights, a bid NBC feels will bring younger sports fans under its umbrella. And then, starting next year, NBC will launch “Sunday Night Basketball” following the end of “Sunday Night Football,” with the hope that NFL fans will keep tuning in after that league’s season comes to an end.

There’s also a hard pitch in progress to bring casual fans back to the sport. NBC is tapping into the nostalgia of its previous NBA era by bringing back John Tesh’s “Roundball Rock” theme and promising appearances by Michael Jordan as an analyst (the basketball legend should appear on NBC’s opening NBA broadcast, says Cordella). NBA games are poised to get more attention on NBC’s “Today” show, where co-anchors Savannah Guthrie and Craig Melvin are putting more of a spotlight on sports. But the network is also looking for ways to match the NBA with its entertainment properties. NBA players were recently spotted on an episode of “Love Island,” for example. “We are connecting entertainment with the athletes and the NBA storylines in ways that will engage these audiences,” says Jenny Storms, NBCU’s chief marketing officer of entertainment and sports.

No matter how hard the company tries, the games themselves are likely to be the most important pieces of the promotional puzzle. “You have an opportunity to maybe reach more people who may not be the hardcores. You have to keep that in mind while not insulting the hardcores,” says Mike Tirico, who will serve as the lead play by play voice of NBC Sports’ NBA coverage. “Can we give you the best X & O breakdown of stuff but also give you a human-interest story?” that might not be the first thing served up to a crowd gathered for a cable broadcast.

“The broader audience is always on our mind,” Tirico adds. Without it, NBC won’t be able to declare a basketball victory.