NBC Sports President Rick Cordella looks ahead to NBA rights and a stacked lineup beyond

Rick Cordella has been president of NBC Sports for just over a year and already the highlights are plenty, including successful coverage of the Paris Olympics and a winning bid for NBA rights. Sports Business Journal caught up with Cordella to talk NBA, Peacock, biggest accomplishments, and what’s next for the company.

You’re a little over one year as president. What’s garnered most of your attention?

Cordella: It feels like you go from one big event to another. That exclusive wild card game [on Peacock] was in the past year, and that felt momentous. Nervous about technology holding up, nervous about the audience size that we would attract. That was an enormous success for Peacock in terms of driving subs. Go from that wild card game, our NFL divisional game was the highest since we’ve gotten a divisional game in our history of [“Sunday Night Football”]. Then you go to the Kentucky Derby, highest since 1989, then we extend [it] by seven years. The Paris Olympics come, that was a booming success for us. Right into the NFL, Big Ten, Premier League, NASCAR playoffs. It feels like every week we have some big event going on, and we’re never bored over here.

The Olympics had such a big year. What’s next on your radar?Cordella: Milano Olympics are coming quickly. ’25 will be a big year for the launch of the NBA in the fall. But ’26 is one we already have our eye on, where we have the Olympics, the Super Bowl, the NBA All-Star Game, all within a 10-day period. We help our corporate cousins in Telemundo with the World Cup Spanish-language rights. We have the WNBA Finals, the Big Ten football championship game. It’s an enormous year across the board. But certainly ’25 and making sure the NBA has a fantastic launch is a priority.

What are some growth opportunities you see, especially with the Big Ten deal?

Cordella: We’ll have 150-plus collegiate basketball games on Peacock. In terms of growth, it’s about Peacock, broadcast and pay TV. Look at a couple deals that we’ve done in the last couple years, the Big Ten and the NBA, that’s adding to our portfolio. I’ve been here 18 years. We really haven’t added — we played defense on our properties. A lot of this goes back to Peacock; if we didn’t have Peacock, I’m not sure those investments would be made. It drives subs through the door, the exclusivity of some of the content. We’ll have effectively 50% of our NBA schedule exclusively on Peacock.

The NBA is one of NBC’s biggest media successes in your last year. When did that possibility start to feel real, and how are you already preparing for it?

Cordella: It’s never real until it’s done. I’ve been around long enough that you have a lot of conversations, and you get certain vibes on certain things, and then suddenly, things can change on a dime. With the NBA, great folks, great relationship. They had an exclusive negotiating period with their incumbents. We were biting our nails, hoping they would get through it. The morning of, I sent Bill Koenig (NBA president, global content and media distribution), a text like, “Are you guys free to get through?” He said, “Yes, how soon can you come into the office?” We were there by noon the next day. It took months to iron out all the various details of what the package would look like. All the way up until the Paris Olympics, they had that matching period. We were nervous, Warner Bros. [could] match our rights. We didn’t know until we get that phone call from Bill that they had matched Amazon rights, and we were in the clear. It’s not often that the NBA changes hands. This is a generational type of deal. We think we’re a better company for it.

The WNBA is included. How is NBC approaching taking on the W?

Cordella: We saw some of this coming when we had Caitlin Clark on Peacock the prior year. We noticed that Big Ten women’s basketball consumption was greater than the Big Ten men’s consumption last year. We put a lot of value on the WNBA as we went through this price negotiation. We plan to give it the proper marketing and attention and talent it needs.

What are your biggest priorities as the relatively new leader of NBC Sports over the next year?

Cordella: Continuing the success we’ve had in the past. Stepping into the role, you don’t want to see anything fall off. I want to make sure the team here feels like they’re being supported by me and the company. We’re trying to inject a little more fun into some of our productions, and you’ll see that with our NBA talent that we hire. Then the NBA, big investment, and we want to make sure we get off on the right foot.