NBC Sports Reviews Innovations and Milestones from Its 2025-26 NBA Regular Season

With the 2025-26 NBA regular season concluded and the playoffs beginning next week, NBC Sports has shared a recap of its first NBA regular-season coverage since 2001-02.

Innovations

On the Bench : Debuting October 27, the format positions one analyst courtside with each team. Play-by-play voices Noah Eagle and Michael Grady have been joined by analysts Robbie Hummel and Austin Rivers. The format has been used across a variety of games and arenas throughout the season.

Sandbox: NBA Showtime analysts use a virtual reality tool featuring a glass table with 3D models of NBA players to break down specific possessions. In its debut season, Sandbox was nominated in the Best in Immersive Technology category at the Sports Business Awards: Tech.

Peacock Performance View: A data overlay for NBA games on Peacock showing shooting percentage, hot streaks, and AI-powered predictive analytics. A quarter of NBA viewers on Peacock have tried the feature this season.

Courtside Live: Launched for the 2026 NBA All-Star Game, Courtside Live provides curated camera views including Bench Cams, Star Spotlight, Hot Highlights, and a vertical feed, with picture-in-picture of the main NBC Sports broadcast. Available on all devices.

Can't Miss Highlights: Peacock carried highlights from every game around the league all season, with clips linking directly to live events.

Peacock ScoreCard: A prediction game tied to nightly matchups. More than 70% of players returned for another round after playing once.

2026 NBA All-Star Game: NBC Sports' coverage of the All-Star Game - its first since 2002 - drew 8.8 million viewers across NBC, Peacock, and Telemundo, the largest audience for the NBA All-Star Game since 2011. The NBA introduced a new USA vs. The World format for the game.

Nostalgia

Throwback Tuesday: On March 3, NBC Sports brought back members of its NBA on NBC crew from the 1990s and early 2000s for a broadcast of Spurs-76ers from Philadelphia. Participants included Bob Costas, Doug Collins, Mike Fratello, Jim Gray, Hannah Storm, Isiah Thomas, and P.J. Carlesimo.

Player Introductions: NBC Sports incorporated home team in-stadium player introductions and implemented Sunday Night Football-style player introductions - where players state their name and college - at the start of every Sunday Night Basketball and Coast 2 Coast Tuesday broadcast.

Voiceovers: NBC Sports used Marv Albert, Bob Costas, and Tom Hammond to introduce select games, including Costas for Knicks-Bucks (Oct. 28), Albert for 76ers-Celtics (Nov. 11), Costas for Lakers-Knicks (Feb. 1), Costas for Celtics-Lakers (Feb. 22), and Hammond for Lakers-Clippers (Nov. 25).

Roundball Rock: NBC Sports brought back John Tesh's Roundball Rock, the NBA on NBC theme from 1990-2002. Tesh performed the song live at the 2026 NBA All-Star Game.

Production

MJ: Insights to Excellence: Michael Jordan sat down with Mike Tirico for a series of interviews covering his career and the current state of the NBA.

Snoop Dogg: On January 5, Snoop Dogg joined Terry Gannon and Reggie Miller in the booth for the second half of Warriors-Clippers on Peacock and NBCSN.

Caitlin Clark: The WNBA star joined the Basketball Night in America crew for Sunday Night Basketball on February 1 (Lakers-Knicks) and March 29 (Knicks-Thunder).

Lenny Kravitz: Kravitz recorded the Sunday Night Basketball theme song, a reworked version of Elvis Presley's A Little Less Conversation.

The Quiet Work: NBC Sports presented a five-part documentary on Celtics star Jayson Tatum's recovery from a torn Achilles suffered in the 2025 Eastern Conference Semifinals.

LINK:	https://www.sportsvideo.org/2026/04/09/nbc-sports-reviews-innovations-...
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