Michael Jordan will play an exciting new role for NBC’s NBA coverage next season, the network has announced.
As part of the league’s new media rights deal, NBA games will be broadcast on NBC once again starting in the fall – just as was the case during Jordan’s reign with the Bulls.
And it’s now been announced that Jordan will serve as a ‘special contributor’ for NBA coverage on NBC and Peacock.
The NBA on NBC and Peacock X account accompanied the news with a highlight reel of Jordan, who of course won six championships and five MVPs in a glittering career for the Bulls.
The announcement comes after the network said it would also be adding Carmelo Anthony, Reggie Miller and Jamal Crawford to its coverage.
Jordan has remained mostly out of the spotlight since retiring from the NBA for good in 2003.
Michael Jordan will be a ‘special contributor’ to NBC’s NBA coverage next season
Jordan is revered for his career with the Bulls but has stayed out of the spotlight since retiring
He will be a part of NBC’s revived NBA coverage, with the network re-gaining rights
He has never coached a team, though he was the owner of the Hornets for 13 years before selling his majority stake in 2023.
NBC and Peacock will air up to 100 regular season games total per season, with more than half of those on NBC, the NBA previously said.
As part of the new 11-year agreement, ESPN will remain a rights-holder while Amazon has gained NBA broadcast rights for the first time.
NBC last held broadcast rights for the NBA more than 20 years ago, in 2002.
Nonetheless, the network’s relationship to the NBA is viewed through a nostalgic lens by many basketball fans, due to the presence of Jordan and other 90’s stars on its airwaves back in the day, and its hit intro song ‘Roundball Rock.’
The usually private Jordan is not the first ‘GOAT’ of a sport to take up an on-air role.
Hockey legend Wayne Gretzky is an analyst for TNT, while Tom Brady started his job as an NFL analyst for Fox Sports last year.
Jordan was thrust back into the spotlight amid the 2020 release of ‘The Last Dance,’ an in-depth docuseries focused on the Bulls’ championship runs featuring him and many of his ex-teammates.
Notably, Jordan had control of the archival footage used in the project, and many of his teammates – including Scottie Pippen – were unhappy with how things were portrayed in the project.
Monday’s announcement was celebrated by many NBA fans, including ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith, who wondered what kind of Jordan viewers would be getting on air.
The former Bulls star Jordan is widely recognized as the greatest NBA player of all-time
He won a staggering six championships with Chicago and won five MVPs as well
‘I just wanna know, is it gonna be the Michael Jordan you see on television? Or is it gonna be the Michael Jordan we speak to? Because if it’s the Michael Jordan we speak to, it’s gonna be epic,’ he said on First Take.
‘The things that he will say, and the way that he says them, and the way that he breaks them down, lord have mercy.’
‘… But if it’s NBC and the little kids out there are watching and he wants to mind his manners about every little syllable he utters – eh, he’ll be alright.’
Meanwhile, the official NBA account wrote: ‘AIR JORDAN ON THE AIR NEXT SEASON.’
Former NBA player Caron Butler also added: ‘What the game needs education from a tactical perspective. Enough of the comical nonsense and false teachings. Kobe has been missed. The GOAT to the rescue!!’
As Butler alluded to, much has been made in recent years of the state of NBA analysis, including TNT’s Inside the NBA.
While the show – which features Charles Barkley, Shaquille O’Neal, Kenny Smith and host Ernie Johnson – will be produced by TNT and shown on ESPN moving forward under a unique agreement, TNT as a network will no longer have rights to show games.
NBC, along with Amazon and ESPN, holds NBA rights through 2036, and Jordan should go a long way in gaining viewers.