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As the new NBA broadcast package begins this fall to rave reviews, the league’s new media partners are still finalizing plans for the next WNBA season. Starting in 2026, the women’s league will also see its games move to Amazon Prime Video, Versant, and NBC, which reportedly has landed on its top play-by-play voice in Zora Stephenson.
According to Ryan Glasspiegel at Front Office Sports, NBC is leaning toward the rising star Zora Stephenson to call top WNBA games.
The network would not confirm Stephenson’s candidacy.
“We are extremely excited to begin our first WNBA season of this new agreement in six months and to present the WNBA Finals in 11 months,” an NBC spokesperson told FOS. “We will have many exciting announcements as we get closer to the start of the season, but we have not named nor decided on who will call the WNBA Finals at this time.”
The WNBA and its broadcast partners previously announced that ESPN/ABC, NBC/Versant, and Prime Video would alternate airing the Finals across the 11-year deals.
Stephenson, a former Elon University guard who graduated in 2015, came up through local Milwaukee Bucks broadcasts on the team’s regional sports network starting in 2019. When the Bucks conducted a Wildcat strike during an NBA Bubble game, Stephenson went viral for her reporting.
.@ZoraStephenson gives us a look into what was going through the minds of Bucks players in recent days and talks about her own experiences being Black in America. pic.twitter.com/lbKkdejCxu
— FanDuel Sports Network Wisconsin (@FanDuelSN_WI) August 26, 2020
Since then, Stephenson has covered multiple Olympics for NBC and become the go-to sideline reporter for its college sports properties. Going back to her basketball roots, Stephenson joined the NBA on NBC this year.
But the young reporter is relatively light on play-by-play experience, having filled in on Bucks games occasionally before jumping to NBC. Promoting Stephenson would be a significant bet on her talent and ability to grow over the 11-year deal.
NBC will air the 2026 championship series, and the network has been ahead of schedule in laying out its plans. Last month, Versant, the spinoff company of former NBC Universal cable networks, announced that Kate Scott will be its lead announcer. Some WNBA Finals games will air on USA Network under the Versant banner; it is unknown whether Stephenson and Scott would alternate broadcasts. The unusual setup between NBC and the departing Versant networks leaves the future uncertain. The NBA and WNBA agreed to a partnership with NBC before Versant was spun out.
NBC told Front Office Sports that it will review how its talent performs throughout the current pro and college basketball campaigns before making a final determination on its top WNBA announcer.
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