From Jordan to Brady and ESPN Pivot, Sports Took Over Upfronts

NEW YORK — During NBCUniversal’s upfront presentation, Jimmy Fallon joked about the sheer amount of hoopla about NBC Sports airing NBA games for the first time in more than 20 years. 

Composer John Tesh was live onstage performing his signature “Roundball Rock” with a full orchestra Monday morning. The GOAT himself—Michael Jordan—announced via video he’ll serve as a special contributor to NBC’s hoops coverage.

As Fallon cracked, “Good morning. I’m glad to be at the NBA upfront—I mean, the NBC upfront.”

After watching decades of upfront presentations made to ad buyers, I have never seen sports play a more vital role.

The upfront is a glitzy annual Madison Avenue event where TV networks and streamers try to sell the bulk of their advertising inventory—worth tens of billions of dollars—to marketers in advance. The sellers go all out to communicate that viewers will, in fact, be watching their commercials. That’s why the value of live sports—the last bastion of appointment viewing—was stressed over and over in their pitches. Once upon a time, the new dramas, sitcoms, and reality shows took center stage as networks hawked their wares. Sports came last. Not anymore.

Sure, NBC touted important new shows such as a live Wicked musical set for this fall. But for the most part, it focused on sports. And why not? 

The era of the NBA on NBC is regarded by many fans as the golden era for TV hoops. Jordan’s dynastic Bulls won all six of their titles on NBC airwaves. 

NBC is barreling toward a historic February, when it will televise Super Bowl LX, the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics, and the NBA All-Star Game over a frenetic 17-day span. NBC modestly described it as “the greatest collection of content that has ever been assembled by one media company.”

Meanwhile, the NFL has turned its formerly mundane schedule release into a huge part of the upfronts. Over the course of three days, the league’s media partners are thumping their chests about opening games. It started Monday morning, with NBC announcing it will telecast the kickoff game between the defending champion Eagles and ratings-magnet Cowboys on Sept. 4.

Not to be outdone, Fox Sports rolled out the largest collection of superstar sports speakers I’ve ever seen at an upfront. They started with Yankees legend Derek Jeter, followed up by Alex Rodriguez, David Ortiz, Michael Strahan, and Erin Andrews, and then closed out the presentation with the NFL’s own GOAT—Tom Brady—throwing passes to old teammate Rob Gronkowski in the audience. Fox announced it will air a record 16 NFL doubleheaders this season. And, of course, Fox reminded the audience that its telecast of Super Bowl LIX was the most-watched Big Game of all time, averaging 127.7 million viewers across all platforms.

Meanwhile, ESPN made waves Monday morning by confirming a contract extension with Chris Berman to Front Office Sports that will take the legendary sportscaster through the network’s first Super Bowl in 2027, as well as his historic 50th anniversary shortly after ESPN’s own 50th anniversary in 2029. 

On Tuesday, ESPN announced details on its long-awaited direct-to-consumer streaming platform dubbed—surprise—ESPN. Chairman Jimmy Pitaro said it wasn’t worth coming up with a new name when the four letters already represent the most respected brand in sports. “There’s power in our name. There’s trust in our name,” said Pitaro.

ESPN will offer two pricing plans for the platform. The higher tier will run $29.99 per month or, bundled with Disney+ and Hulu,  cost $35.99. At launch, however, consumers can get all three for $29.99. The lower-tier plan, including everything now on ESPN+, will run $11.99. Fresh off signing his new five-year $100 million contract, ESPN superstar Stephen A. Smith is expected to star at Disney’s upfront on Tuesday afternoon.

During its Monday evening presentation, Amazon Prime Video touted a Black Friday NFL-NBA tripleheader. The giant streamer will show Eagles- Bears in the afternoon, followed by an NBA doubleheader. “This is going to be the greatest Friday in sports,” said Prime’s Charissa Thompson. Won’t the brick-and-mortar retailers like Walmart and Target love that? 

It’s been said that sports is the last Jenga block holding up the TV ecosystem. After this year, the same might be said for the upfronts themselves.