Michael Jordan is not expected to return to NBC’s NBA coverage next season, according to Michael McCarthy of Front Office Sports. His run as a “special contributor” lasted exactly one year.
NBC announced Jordan in May 2025 with the kind of press release that made it sound like the network had landed the biggest fish in television. Then the reality of the deal set in. Jordan never appeared during live programming. His only work was a pre-taped sit down interview with Mike Tirico called “Insights of Excellence” that NBC then chopped into segments and rolled out over the season.
Fans hated the format. The segments turned into memes almost immediately. Jordan looked disengaged in the interview clips, and NBC’s decision to stretch a single conversation across months of programming made a nine figure branding play feel like a filler.
Rumors last summer had NBC paying Jordan $40 million for the role. NBC has never confirmed that number. If it is real, this is one of the worst returns on investment in modern sports media.
Here is what NBC actually got. A few viral clips, mostly negative. One prestige interview that already existed. Zero live appearances. Zero live game presence. Zero cross platform push during the playoffs.
Compare that to what Charles Barkley or Shaq generate in a normal week on TNT and it is not close.
Jordan’s schedule has never been the schedule of a working analyst. He is a NASCAR co-owner with Denny Hamlin. He owns a piece of the Charlotte Hornets business. He plays a lot of golf. Anyone who thought MJ was going to sit in a studio on a Thursday in February and break down pick and roll coverage was not paying attention.
The bigger question is what NBC does with the money. If the network reallocates that budget to signing a real weekly analyst voice, this ends up being a fine chapter. If NBC just quietly moves on and pretends it never happened, that is a bigger indictment of how the deal was greenlit in the first place.
Jordan gave NBC one clean interview and a pile of memes. That is not what $40 million buys anymore. If it ever was.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
