For at least the next three years, there will rarely be a Sunday night when NBC isn’t airing a live sporting event.
The network has, of course, aired Sunday Night Football, the premier NFL game of the week, every year since 2006. But beginning this NBA season, NBC will add Sunday Night Basketball to the mix once football season winds to a close. And now, as a result of ESPN exiting its Sunday Night Baseball deal earlier this year, triggering a short-term reshuffling of MLB rights, NBC will be home to the league’s exclusive Sunday window for the next three years.
Sunday Night Baseball will perfectly bridge the end of basketball season in the spring to the start of football season in the fall, creating a year-round schedule of live sports during the primetime window on Sundays for NBC.
NBC Sports president Rick Cordella believes this is a strategy that can lead to habitual viewership. In a recent appearance on the Sports Media Watch Podcast, Cordella explained his rationale.
“It’s a very easy concept to understand that we’re going to have the NFL, NBA and Major League Baseball — the three biggest professional sports in America — having the best players, the best matchups, great production on Sunday nights,” Cordella said. “You know before the work week begins and you’re a little weary on Sunday night, you can turn your channel to NBC and get a game that’s worthy of your attention. We feel like that’s a concept that consumers and the sports fans can easily understand. So we’re pretty excited about that.”
Not only is the regularity of NBC’s new sports schedule position the network for viewership success, but the quality of those matchups should set its Sunday night packages apart. As Cordella alluded to, all three of the network’s packages — NFL, NBA, and MLB — are designed to carry one of (if not the) most attractive game of the week in that league. It’s easy to envision that viewers could become accustomed to tuning into NBC every Sunday simply to watch what they are certain is a high-level game.
Does that mean Sunday Night Basketball or Sunday Night Baseball will begin drawing NFL-esque numbers? Of course not. But can Sunday Night Baseball improve over its ESPN-era baseline? Absolutely. Can Sunday Night Basketball elevate NBA regular season viewership? Absolutely.
The momentum NBC builds throughout these next three years will likely help all three packages as well. By 2028, it could very well become second nature for sports fans to tune into NBC on Sundays. At least, that’s the hope for Cordella.
About Drew Lerner
Drew Lerner is a staff writer for Awful Announcing and an aspiring cable subscriber. He previously covered sports media for Sports Media Watch. Future beat writer for the Oasis reunion tour.