NBC Sports is expanding Jason Benetti’s role.
The network’s lead Sunday Night Baseball voice will call a mix of regular-season and playoff NBA games this coming season, as first reported by Front Office Sports.
— NBC Sports PR (@NBCSportsPR) August 13, 2026
Benetti made his NBA on NBC debut this past April, calling Game 2 of the Celtics’ first-round series against the 76ers alongside Robbie Hummel and Jordan Cornette. It marked his first national NBA broadcast since Game 1 of a Trail Blazers-Nuggets playoff series in 2021, which he called remotely for ESPN.
As FOS reports, Benetti won’t be supplanting any of the announcers already in NBC’s rotation, a stable that includes Mike Tirico, Noah Eagle, Terry Gannon, and Michael Grady. Instead, he’s reportedly expected to call somewhere between 10 and 20 NBA games over the course of the season, with the exact number depending on how the schedule shakes out around his baseball commitments.
When NBC signed Benetti in March to anchor its return to baseball for the first time since 2000, it was widely understood he’d be calling other sports for the network as well. NBC currently holds a sprawling sports portfolio, including Sunday Night Football, Sunday Night Basketball, Big Ten football on Saturday nights, Notre Dame football through 2029, Big Ten, Big East, and Big 12 basketball, and of course, Sunday Night Baseball.
Just how much of the network’s broader portfolio Benetti would essentially call was still an open question as recently as June. Appearing on the Sports Media Watch Podcast two months into his Sunday Night Baseball tenure, Benetti admitted the conversation about his other assignments hadn’t even happened yet, with the baseball launch consuming all of his attention in the meantime.
“We have not discussed packages or anything,” Benetti said, “like football or basketball, is what I know, but I don’t know the rest of it. We’ve been so singularly focused on the baseball thing. I knew I was going to be part of the other sports — it would’ve been very difficult for me to do if it was just baseball — so I know I’m going to be a part of it, but I truly, legitimately have not had the conversation. It’s coming down the pike at some point in the next month; I’d imagine we’ll have the conversation about what it’s going to be.”
That conversation now appears to have happened, at least where the NBA is concerned. Whether it extends to college football, the sport Benetti called for Fox’s No. 2 team alongside Robert Griffin III, remains to be seen.
About Sam Neumann
Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.