David Samson: NBC could have saved face on Michael Jordan interview with a ‘costume change’

David Samson believes NBC created a headache for itself by failing to consider giving Michael Jordan a change of clothes.

As soon as NBC announced that legendary NBA star Michael Jordan would be appearing as a “special contributor” for its renewed coverage of the league, speculation ran rampant about how much —or how little —he would appear.

It appears that the sum total of Jordan’s appearances will be one sit-down interview with Mike Tirico spliced into topics and spread across the season, at least for now.

That’s led to some criticism from NBA fans who hoped to see more from the Hall of Famer.

Former MLB executive and Meadowlark Media personality David Samson thinks NBC could have avoided the issue —or at least cut into the criticism —simply by having Jordan change his clothes between questions.

“They didn’t change Jordan’s clothes,” Samson said in a recent episode of Nothing Personal with David Samson. “All they had to do was have a costume change, and then it would look like, oh, he sat down again. All you do is change clothes, put a green screen for a different background, and it looks like he sat down a second time, and no one’s saying a word.”

While doing so wouldn’t change the information Jordan shared, making a small change like that could have affected how the interview was perceived. For example, he admitted he does it whenever he’s recording multiple shows in a day.

“The reason why people are so angry is they’re saying, wait a minute, he sat down one time,” he continued. “NBC got him one time, and they’re just gonna chop it up to make it for 10 shows. Christ, I change my blazer when we’re doing something on a different day to make people think that it’s different. I think it’s funny.”

Regardless of the clothing he wears, it’s clear that Jordan’s involvement with NBC’s NBA presentation will be minimal, and Samson thinks anyone who expected otherwise was kidding themselves.

“Michael Jordan, when he signed a deal with NBC, is getting paid a lot of money,” Samson said. “And the thought was, what’s he going to do? And everyone said, ‘Oh, is he going to be a broadcaster?’ No chance. He’s not traveling to road games. Is he going to be pregame, postgame like Jeter? No chance. Jordan would never do that. He’s not allocating the time. Doesn’t have the time, doesn’t need to.”