NBC Sports made old-school basketball fans’ hearts flutter to the beat of John Tesh’s “Roundball Rock” with Monday’s surprise announcement that Michael Jordan will join its broadcast team as a “special contributor” when NBA games return to the network this October for the first time since 2002. Will Michael Jordan, commentator, be must-see TV for basketball fans like Michael Jordan, the greatest NBA player of all time, was in the 1980s and ‘90s?
Will Michael Jordan, commentator, be must-see TV like Michael Jordan, the greatest NBA player of all time, was?
That will likely depend on which Jordan appears: the brand-conscious celebrity pitchman of Nike and Gatorade who took pains not to offend any potential customers or the highly opinionated trash-talker seen by people who’ve spent time with him when the cameras were off.
Is it going to be “the Michael Jordan that you see on television or …the Michael Jordan we speak to?” Stephen A. Smith, ESPN’s lead talking head, said in response to Monday’s announcement. “If it’s the Michael Jordan we speak to? Oh, it’s gon’ be epic. This brotha … the things that he will say and the way that he says them and the way that he breaks them down? Lord, have mercy!”
But what reason do we have to believe that the “Michael Jordan that you see on television,” as Smith put it, won’t be the one who shows up on television for his new gig with NBC Sports?
Still, fans can hope that they’ll get a less filtered Jordan, the one who told us in the 2020 ESPN documentary “The Last Dance” how deeply he internalized every slight and perceived slight: from Karl Malone winning MVP awards ahead of him to former Seattle Supersonics head coach George Karl seeing him in a restaurant and not speaking. He latched onto every insult, and imagined some, and burnished that into the fuel that propelled him to the next explosive dunk, the next spectacular game, the next championship.
What adjectives might the 62-year-old known for his flights to the rim use to describe today’s game, with its seemingly endless barrage of 3-point attempts? Given how he’s talked about how the Indiana Pacers roughed him up in the 1998 Eastern Conference finals, what does he make of the league’s referees blowing flagrant foul calls for contact that didn’t even warrant a whistle when it was inflicted upon him?
What adjectives might the 62-year-old known for his flights to the rim use to describe today’s game, with its seemingly endless barrage of 3-point attempts?
Unless LeBron James unexpectedly retires this offseason, Jordan will almost certainly find himself offering his opinions about the player 22 years his junior who chose to wear No. 23 because Jordan did. What rebuke might Jordan have for the fans and media who have found absurd ways to compare him (sometimes negatively) to James? Jordan has acknowledged James’ greatness, but you can expect everything he says (or doesn’t say) about James will be scrutinized for perceived slights.
Beyond saying Jordan won’t be a daily fixture, NBC Sports hasn’t explained what Jordan’s “special contributor” role will mean. But reportedly he’ll make occasional appearances alongside former NBA stars-turned-analysts Carmelo Anthony, Reggie Miller and Jamal Crawford and play-by-play team Mike Tirico and Noah Eagle.
Since Jordan’s third and final retirement as an NBA player more than two decades ago, there’s a generation that knows him more for the “Crying Jordan” meme from his Hall of Fame induction speech and the pettiness he expressed in “The Last Dance” than for routinely demolishing opposing teams and keeping some of the best basketball players of his generation from ever winning a championship. For two decades, the public has argued Jordan’s legacy on hot-take shows, blogs and social media, while rarely hearing from the man himself. There’s always a chance we get a reflective Jordan, perhaps the version who, at 50, told ESPN the Magazine that he’d give up everything for a chance to play again but was learning to accept that he couldn’t. Whether he’s venomous or reflective, caustic or insightful, NBC Sports is clearly banking on Jordan drawing viewers, the same way Fox Sports put its money down on seven-time Super Bowl winner Tom Brady to call football games on that network. After inking an 11-year, $2.2 billion annual rights extension with the NFL in 2021, Fox reportedly agreed to pay Brady $375 million over a decade. NBC hasn’t said how much it’s paying Jordan, but Comcast’s NBC Universal is spending a reported $2.5 billion a year for the next 11 years to show NBA games on NBC and Peacock. And signing Jordan appears to be its strategy to make sure more people watch. Everyone who does watch will bring their own long-held opinions about basketball’s unrivaled savant. About five months from now, we’ll learn just how much of his own true thoughts he’s willing to share with us.
Keith Reed
Keith Reed is an award-winning journalist and a past senior editor at ESPN. His work has appeared in The Boston Globe, The Root, Vibe, Essence and elsewhere. 
