Michael Jordan to join NBC Sports NBA coverage as special contributor

“I am so excited to see the NBA back on NBC,” Jordan said.

Michael Jordan at the NASCAR Cup Series Straight Talk Wireless 400 in 2024.

Six-time NBA champion Michael Jordan will join NBC Sports’ coverage as a special contributor this fall, it was announced Monday.

“I am so excited to see the NBA back on NBC,” Jordan said in a statement. “The NBA on NBC was a meaningful part of my career, and I’m excited about being a special contributor to the project. I’m looking forward to seeing you all when the NBA on NBC launches this October.”

The announcement was made during NBCUniversal’s Upfront presentation in New York City. NBC Sports President Rick Cordella said he was “incredibly proud” to have the basketball legend join the coverage.

“Michael’s legacy both on and off the court speaks for itself,” Cordella said.

won six championships with the Chicago Bulls and just as many NBA Finals MVP awards. He is a 14-time NBA All-Star and has 10 scoring titles. He won the Olympic gold medal with Team USA in Los Angeles in 1984 and Barcelona in 1992.

Last year, NBCUniversal and the NBA announced an 11-year deal to broadcast NBA and WNBA regular-season and playoff games beginning with the 2025-26 season. Peacock will livestream exclusive national Monday night games.

NBC and Peacock will have national coverage of regional doubleheaders on Tuesday nights, while NBC Sports will launch “Sunday Night Basketball” next year.

Former NBA players Jamal Crawford and Reggie Miller will serve as game analysts, and Carmelo Anthony will be a studio analyst.

The announcement comes a week after NBC Sports announced that it would use Artificial Intelligence to recreate the voice of the late Jim Fagan, who was the narrator for NBC from 1990 to 2002. His voice will be used for “select title sequences, show opens, and promos,” the company said in a news release.

Cordella said that adding Fagan’s voice as a narrator will stir a “deep sense of nostalgia” for longtime basketball fans.

The network will also bring back “Roundball Rock” from John Tesh that served as the theme song for NBA coverage during the 1990s.

NBA legend Michael Jordan will appear as a special correspondent on NBCUniversal‘s coverage of the league when it begins its long-term rights deal in this fall.

Drawing cheers from the crowd at Radio City Music Hall on Monday morning, NBCU featured the news in a prominent segment of its upfront presentation to advertisers. Mimicking the famous press release Jordan released when he un-retired from baseball and rejoined the NBA in the 1990s, the company flashed a mock press release on video screens at Radio City saying simply, “I’m back.”

Jordan then appeared in a brief video. “Sorry I can’t be with you,” he said. “I am excited about being a special contributor. … Looking forward to seeing you all when the NBA on NBC launches this fall.”

Now more than 20 years removed from his playing career, Jordan has stayed involved in pro sports as an owner, but has not been a constant presence around the NBA. Unlike contemporaries like Charles Barkley and Shaquille O’Neal, Jordan has stayed at a remove from the league he helped popularize in the 1980s and ’90s. The six-time NBA champion re-entered the pop-culture zeitgeist in 2020 when ESPN’s docuseries about Jordan and the Chicago Bulls, The Last Dance, became a pandemic phenomenon.

No details were provided by NBCU about Jordan’s on-air role.

“It doesn’t get any more electrifying than that,” lead sports anchor Mike Tirico said after the video announcement, which was preceded by an orchestral version of NBA on NBC theme “Roundball Rock,” led by its composer, John Tesh.

Tirico saluted Jordan as a “symbol of the golden era of NBC’s coverage of the NBA from 1990 to 2002.”

NBCU and Amazon Prime Video joined Disney/ESPN last year in signing 11-year rights deals with the NBA worth a collective $77 billion. Warner Bros. Discovery, whose networks have shown NBA games for nearly 40 years, opted not to re-up.