Sue Bird is adding another title to her Hall of Fame resume. 

The former UConn women’s basketball and WNBA great joins NBC this summer as an in-studio host for the 2026 WNBA season.

Bird and fellow Hall of Famer Cheryl Miller will make their NBC and Peacock debut Sunday at 1 p.m. for NBC’s pregame show,”WNBA Showtime” ahead of the 1:30 p.m. matchup between the Las Vegas Aces and the Atlanta Dream. Bird will also join Miller in the studio for the halftime and post-game coverage of Sunday’s Seattle Storm-Indiana Fever game (6 p.m.) and Monday’s Dallas Wings-Washington Mystics game (8 p.m.).

“I think for me, what was really a big selling point was, you know, outside of wanting to be a part of this coverage, wanting to just bring a former player’s kind of perspective, a big selling point was kind of the idea of a good hang, right?” said Bird during NBC’s media conference call Thursday morning. “That was a huge feeling for me. Like, it will be all of us on TV, yes, and are we talking about the game, yes, but we want to do it in a way where this is as if you’re just chilling with us, right? … I’ve done a little bit of studio work in the past, and it just kind of diffuses this idea that I had to be some broadcaster similar to maybe what we’ve seen in the past. And it’s like, no, we all just get to be ourselves. We all just get to talk basketball.”

Since retiring in 2022, Bird has remained active in the women’s sports space. From her podcasts to her role as Team USA’s first-ever managing director, the former Husky remains involved with women’s basketball at nearly every level. 

After helping lead UConn to two national championships, Bird spent 20 years in the WNBA playing for the Seattle Storm. The 13-time WNBA All-Star is one of, if not the, all-time greatest point guards to play in the league. Bird led Seattle to four WNBA championships and set the WNBA career-assist record with 3,234. Bird is also one of just two athletes to have won five Olympic Gold medals in women’s basketball (the other is Diana Taurasi with a record six).

“It’s all about bringing my unique perspective,” said Bird when asked how she’ll approach broadcasting. “Talking about basketball is something I really enjoy to do, no matter what hat I have on, and my relationships with players are something that I really value, and I think it’s something that allows me to see the game, because I actually know what they might be thinking, and I can bring that to people sitting at home.”

Bird joined UConn in 1998. Throughout her basketball career, she not only saw college women’s basketball take off in popularity but also experienced the recent explosion of the WNBA’s fandom. With more attention than ever before, Bird understands why the women’s basketball media landscape has also changed. More news outlets are covering the game as major TV giants, like NBC, are clamoring to get broadcast rights.

However, balancing that increased media coverage has brought its hurdles. WNBA news now becomes national, trending headlines in the blink of an eye, as players’ personal lives have become more public than ever and online false narratives are given too much power.

“I think all of the players, all of us, throughout the course of the existence (of the WNBA), have wanted more critique. We understand that’s a part of sports. It’s a part of conversation. It’s what gets people excited,” said Bird. “… I think that’s a great thing. And in order to get people to have understanding and knowledge about those types of debates, they need to be covered, and they need to be covered accurately, right?

“… I personally feel like in 20 years, there’s going to be college courses taught on what happened to this league essentially overnight. And so there’s going to be some growing pains with that, and I think we’re just in that place right now. I actually think it’s what makes people, like myself and Cheryl, really special to this coverage, because we’ve lived it, we understand it. We can bring a different perspective to it. And I’m really proud, in that way, to be a part of it.”

The 2026 WNBA season began on May 8 and marks a new era in the league following a new, historic collective bargaining agreement. While the top players’ salaries are now in the seven figures, there’s a handful of on-court issues that remain at play.

In the first week of the regular season, the biggest league-wide on-court issue has been inconsistent foul calling. Some officials are calling nit-picky fouls after the slightest touch, while others aren’t calling the more obvious hits. The league has long had an issue with excess physicality; however, as Bird argues, the league may have “overcorrected.”

“I think we’re in a little bit of a growing pain and an adjustment period,” said Bird. “You know, that’s why we’ve seen so many fouls. That’s why we’ve seen games go, you know, two and a half hours because of the stoppage. … I’ve always wanted to see more freedom of movement.

“I’ve always wanted to see not a less physical game, but just one that didn’t have so much physicality and didn’t really allow for that as much. Is there probably a happy medium that we’ll all get to? Yeah, but you know with a lot of things in life, you kind of have to overcorrect, and then everyone kind of finds their balance within that.”