The new era of NBA coverage on NBC Sports will borrow heavily from the old “NBA on NBC” of the 1990s — and also the “Sunday Night Football” of present day.
NBCUniversal announced at its NBA media day Monday that it has hired Lenny Kravitz to record a weekly open for its “Sunday Night Basketball” series, a la the Carrie Underwood-sung Joan Jett cover it uses for “Sunday Night Football.”
NBC never once used a pop-star open during its previous run with the NBA — every game telecast opened with the “Roundball Rock” theme over animation or no intro at all — but they have become commonplace across sports television in the two decades since the network last carried the league in 2002. ABC spent years cycling from one pop-star open to another (Justin Timberlake, The Pussycat Dolls, Tim McGraw and that is far from an exhaustive list) before largely abandoning the format.
In another homage to “Sunday Night Football,” NBC has also named its Sunday night NBA pregame show “Basketball Night in America” — an obvious take-off of the network’s “Football Night in America” NFL pregame. While NBC on Monday unveiled a new, standalone studio for NBA coverage, the network said that the Sunday show will air entirely on-site from the featured game. “Football Night in America,” it should be noted, has long been both in-studio and on-site.
“Basketball Night in America” will only air prior to “Sunday Night Basketball.” For all other games, NBC is resurrecting its old “NBA Showtime” moniker, which it used on NBA pregame coverage for most of its prior run airing the league. While the network abandoned the name after the 2000 season, “NBA Showtime” was a familiar enough brand in those years that it was also the name of an “NBA on NBC” arcade video game that launched in 1999.
“NBA Showtime” will air prior to NBCU’s Monday and Tuesday games.
NBCU has lined up three different presenting sponsors for its pregame coverage, McDonald’s (Sundays), Wingstop (Mondays) and State Farm (Tuesdays). For actual game coverage, Comcast’s Xfinity will serve as the presenting sponsor on Monday nights and Kia on Tuesdays. Halftime shows will be sponsored by American Express.
Two weeks out from Opening Night, NBCU has reportedly sold out nearly all of its NBA regular season ad inventory, securing commitments from nearly 170 different advertisers.
Of the 170 advertisers signing on for the “NBA on NBC,” ten percent are said to be advertising on NBA games for the first time, and 20 percent are said to be advertising on NBCU for the first time.
