The new era of NBA coverage on NBC Sports will borrow heavily from the old \u201cNBA on NBC\u201d of the 1990s \u2014 and also the \u201cSunday Night Football\u201d of present day.<\/p>\n
NBCUniversal announced at its NBA media day Monday that it has hired Lenny Kravitz to record a weekly open for its \u201cSunday Night Basketball\u201d series, a la the Carrie Underwood-sung Joan Jett cover it uses for \u201cSunday Night Football.\u201d<\/p>\n
NBC never once used a pop-star open during its previous run with the NBA \u2014 every game telecast opened with the \u201cRoundball Rock\u201d theme over animation or no intro at all \u2014 but they have become commonplace across sports television in the two decades since the network last carried the league in 2002. ABC spent years cycling from one pop-star open to another (Justin Timberlake, The Pussycat Dolls, Tim McGraw and that is far from an exhaustive list) before largely abandoning the format.<\/p>\n
In another homage to \u201cSunday Night Football,\u201d NBC has also named its Sunday night NBA pregame show \u201cBasketball Night in America\u201d \u2014 an obvious take-off of the network\u2019s \u201cFootball Night in America\u201d NFL pregame. While NBC on Monday unveiled a new, standalone studio for NBA coverage, the network said that the Sunday show will air entirely on-site from the featured game. \u201cFootball Night in America,\u201d it should be noted, has long been both in-studio and on-site.<\/p>\n
\u201cBasketball Night in America\u201d will only air prior to \u201cSunday Night Basketball.\u201d For all other games, NBC is resurrecting its old \u201cNBA Showtime\u201d moniker, which it used on NBA pregame coverage for most of its prior run airing the league. While the network abandoned the name after the 2000 season, \u201cNBA Showtime\u201d was a familiar enough brand in those years that it was also the name of an \u201cNBA on NBC\u201d arcade video game that launched in 1999.<\/p>\n
\u201cNBA Showtime\u201d will air prior to NBCU\u2019s Monday and Tuesday games.<\/p>\n
NBCU has lined up three different presenting sponsors for its pregame coverage, McDonald\u2019s (Sundays), Wingstop (Mondays) and State Farm (Tuesdays)<\/a>. For actual game coverage, Comcast\u2019s Xfinity will serve as the presenting sponsor on Monday nights and Kia on Tuesdays. Halftime shows will be sponsored by American Express. <\/p>\n