When NBA games return to NBC for the 2025-26 season, something strangely familiar will echo through living rooms across the country. It’s the deep, confident voice of Jim Fagan, the legendary announcer whose tone once defined basketball broadcasts in the 1990s. But Jim Fagan passed away years ago. The voice you’ll hear? It’s powered by artificial intelligence.
NBC Sports has officially announced it will use AI to recreate Fagan’s voice for its NBA coverage, blending nostalgia with cutting-edge technology. This move isn’t about replacing people. It’s about reconnecting fans with an era that still resonates deeply. For many, Fagan’s voice was the soundtrack to unforgettable moments—Jordan’s final shots, Shaq’s dominance, Iverson’s crossover. Now, that familiar tone is being brought back to life through AI voice synthesis, a tool that learns from hours of past recordings to mimic tone, pacing, and inflection with stunning accuracy.
What’s remarkable is how seamless the process has become. Developers feed audio samples of Fagan’s original broadcasts into a learning model, which analyzes the nuances of his speech and builds a vocal replica. The result is a voice that feels real—not robotic, not stiff, but vibrant and expressive. NBC plans to use it not only in opening themes and promos but potentially in highlight reels and special features.