'Sunday Night Basketball' on NBC — part of new NBA media rights deal — could be a hit (2024)

Some titles just have a sweet sound and “Sunday Night Basketball” is such a thing. It sounds like a program an NBA fan would want to check out. We’ve seen what NBC has done with its primetime Sunday NFL package — “Sunday Night Football” has been the No. 1-ranked show in primetime for 13 consecutive years and last year averaged a Total Audience Delivery of 21.4 million — and while no sane person would argue that the NBA and the NFL are equal in terms of popularity among American sports fans, it’s NBC’s acquisition of a Sunday night window for the NBA that has my interest piqued.

By now many of you have seen the litany of elements NBC received from the NBA when it comes to NBC Universal’s 11-year, $2.5 billion deal with the league. Those rights include an NBA conference finals in six of the 11 years of the deal: 100 NBA national games each regular season across NBC and Peaco*ck; first-round playoff games that will be exclusive in all markets; approximately 50 Peaco*ck-exclusive national regular-season and postseason NBA games, including national Monday night games and doubleheaders. There’s also six NBA Conference Finals series (every other year beginning with 2025-26 season); “NBA Tip-Off” doubleheader each season; the rights to NBA All-Star Saturday Night and the NBA All Star Game on NBC and Peaco*ck; more than 50 regular season WNBA games between Peaco*ck, USA and NBC; the WNBA conference finals in 2026, 2028, 2030, 2031, 2032, 2034 and 2036; the WNBA Finals in 2026, 2030, and 2034; USA Basketball men’s and women’s games; the return of “Roundball Rock,” and what we are writing about here — Sunday Night Basketball after the NFL season concludes.

We are a long way from the debut “Sunday Night Basketball” telecast, but the working premise is to air something that resembles the Sunday Night Football franchise, including amplified production values for games. Matchups will feature best on best or teams with a national draw and Rick Cordella, the president of NBC Sports, says the overarching goal is to air an hour-long pregame show leading into the games, which will serve as “the paper of record for the league” as well as provide highlights, analysis and entertaining discussion.

“We hope to have a fantastic studio show and studio talent around what we see as the game of the week and we will use our team appearances working closely with the NBA on making it the best matchup that we possibly can have at that point of the season,” Cordella said. “We’ve obviously had a lot of success on Sunday Football. I’d love to say someone had a eureka moment coming up with the idea for Sunday Night Basketball but I think it was just natural to us at NBC Sports that this would be a franchise we wanted to create outside of football season. Certainly we have a (broadcast) window open there (after the NFL season). We pitched it to the NBA and it’s an easy to understand concept.”

The NBA reportedly worked with other partners to make Sunday evenings free for NBC where Disney/ESPN has Sunday afternoon NBA games. In theory, Sunday Night Basketball will debut the Sunday after Super Bowl LV, which will be played on Feb. 8, 2026, in Santa Clara. One big wrinkle is that date coincides with the Milano-Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics, which run Feb. 6 through Feb. 22, and will air on NBCU platforms. But that’s not a bad problem to have given how much promotion Sunday Night Basketball can get during the first week of those Olympics.

Cordella said the key to Sunday Night Basketball feeling big will be scheduling. He likes the idea of pitting the best Eastern Conference teams against the best Western Conference teams in that slot. The NFL has long worked with NBC to make Sunday Night Football feel like destination viewing and NBC plans to work with the NBA’s broadcasting department for the same style matchups.

“The best matchups that we have access are what we will attempt to put on that night,” Cordella said. “So a rematch of the NBA Finals would be a Sunday night matchup we’d want. Things that are big market and big ratings. We’ll have a research team that goes through all this. There is some flexibility to move games in and out within reason during the NBA schedule. You have seen Turner previously move games in and out and we will work closely with the NBA on that. Then it’s about putting production values against this.We want to showcase our production capabilities. We will have our ‘A’ team on the game in terms of announcers and analysts and a great studio show.”

On that note: Cordella said NBC plans on Mike Tirico being the “A” voice on NBC’s NBA games. NBC will obviously need multiple game teams and studio analysts given the inventory.

Sunday Night Basketball should end prior to 11 p.m. ET, which will provide the ability for a quick postgame wrap-up before getting off the air for nightly news and other programming. In theory, Peaco*ck could pick up studio coverage after that. “There are still lots of details to be sort of settled out,” Cordella said when asked about a Sunday night NBA show on Peaco*ck.

Cordella said his group has high hopes for the product. NBC will need some hits given the company has a monster challenge — it has fewer games than Turner to monetize and has to offset a higher rights fees acquisition cost. That will not be easy.

“If we are successful, people will write that NBC kind of copied a little bit of its winning NFL formula from the fall,” said Cordella, “and brought it through to the NBA season.”

Required Reading

• Aldridge: My front-row seat at “Inside the NBA”
• NBA’s new TV deal won’t include matching rights
• Why Sunday Night Basketball on NBC could be a hit

(Photo: Brad Mangin / NBAE via Getty Images)

Richard Deitsch is a media reporter for The Athletic. He previously worked for 20 years for Sports Illustrated, where he covered seven Olympic Games, multiple NCAA championships and U.S. Open tennis. Richard also hosts a weekly sports media podcast. Follow Richard on Twitter @richarddeitsch