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It's been 23 years since the NBA's decade-long partnership with NBC ended after the National Broadcasting Company was outbid by Disney on the league's impending media rights deal. But after two decades out of the professional basketball business, the NBA will soon be returning to NBC this fall. And just as was the case when NBC last had the NBA's media rights, the network is putting together a star-studded group of analysts to break down the game, including Carmelo Anthony, who became the newest signee on Thursday morning.
“NBC has hired Carmelo Anthony to serve as one of the network’s top studio analysts when it begins broadcasting NBA games next season,” writes Andrew Marchand of The Athletic.
Anthony, who retired in 2023 after a 19-year NBA career that included 10 All-Star appearances and six All-NBA nods, will join Reggie Miller and Jamal Crawford, each whom have been part of the Turner Sports team in recent seasons. Maria Taylor, Mike Tirico and Ian Eagle will all be part of the NBC Sports team that covers the league as well, but NBC isn't done big game hunting just yet. Per Marchand, the company has shown interest in both Dwyane Wade and Grant Hill.
Not to be outdone, Amazon — which will be entering its first year of NBA coverage starting in the 2025-26 season — has reached deals with Dirk Nowitzki and Blake Griffin to spearhead its coverage of the league.
Although Anthony hasn't yet had any experience with traditional in-game or studio coverage of the league, he has been co-host of the 7 PM in Brooklyn podcast with Kid Mero for the last two years.
NBC will have rights to the NBA All-Star Game, a third of the NBA Playoffs, Monday night games exclusively broadcast on Peacock, Tuesday games on NBC, and Sunday nights on NBC as well starting once the NFL season concludes.
