Aaron Judge commercial: How NBC decided to use Yankees slugger in Super Bowl pregame spot
Aaron Judge #99 of the New York Yankees looks on against the Baltimore Orioles at Yankee Stadium on Saturday, Sep. 27, 2025. Credit: Jim McIsaac
Aaron Judge reported to Yankee Stadium last month and put on his full pinstriped No. 99 uniform. He wasn’t getting ready for the 2026 season. He was shooting a television ad in the dead of winter for the return of MLB to NBC.
Starting with an Opening Day doubleheader and continuing with the “Sunday Night Baseball” package that used to be on ESPN, NBC is back in the baseball business on a regular basis for the first time since 2000.
And NBC chose Judge for a 30-second commercial that debuted during the pregame show of Sunday’s Super Bowl and is being shown during the network’s coverage of the Winter Olympics.
The ad opens with Judge at Yankee Stadium with the stadium lights on behind him.
Then multiple baseballs — presumably rocketed by Judge from the Bronx all the way to Rockefeller Center — crash into and cause mayhem inside the studios / filming spaces for the “Today Show,” “Law & Order: SVU,” “Saturday Night Live” and “Late Night With Seth Meyers” as the song “Bang a Gong (Get It On)” by T. Rex plays in the background.
“Judge!” Meyers growls after picking up a wayward baseball in a call back to Captain James T. Kirk screaming “Khan!” to the heavens in the movie “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.”
Then, back to Judge, who swings his big bat, says “see you soon” and makes an “oops, my bad” face as more NBC voices howl “Judge!”
Actually, Judge and the Yankees won’t see viewers all that soon. The Yankees’ first appearance on “Sunday Night Baseball” is scheduled for June 28 at Boston on NBC and its streaming service, Peacock. The Yankees will also appear on July 19 against the Dodgers and July 26 at Philadelphia.
NBC and Peacock have an Opening Day doubleheader on March 26 featuring the Mets hosting the Pirates (yes, the Mets’ season opener will not be on SNY, so no Gary, Keith and Ron.)
The second game is the World Series champion Dodgers hosting Arizona.
“The ad came about as we were thinking about using the huge audience that we'll have in February to debut our first spot for MLB back on NBC and streaming on Peacock,” Lyndsay Signor, senior vice president, sports marketing for NBCUniversal, told Newsday on Tuesday in a telephone interview. “How could we really speak to a broad audience outside of a sports audience about what makes NBC and Peacock unique and differentiated in the space in terms of broadcasting and streaming MLB?
“So as the team led by Jeremy Quayhackx put their brains together in their own sports writer's room, the concept of this idea of Aaron Judge just ripping balls that end up coming through 30 Rock came to life. We really wanted this to feel very uniquely NBC by bringing in [intellectual property] and talent from across our entertainment networks."
Judge is undoubtedly one of the faces of baseball. So is Dodgers’ star Shohei Ohtani, who was No. 1 in jersey sales last year with Judge second. So why did NBC choose Judge for the ad? It came down to the home-field advantage with NBC’s home base of 30 Rock being in New York.
“There's obviously many huge names in MLB,” Signor said. “One of the things at least for this first spot was really tying it again back to us. Our home base is 30 Rock. I think that's what most people would associate NBCUniversal with is the home base of 30 Rock in New York City. So having all of these shows in and around shooting at 30 Rock, whether it's ‘SNL’ or Seth’s show or the ‘Today Show,’ having that New York City anchor really lent itself to working with the Yankees and Aaron Judge as one of the biggest stars in MLB for a spot like this. Particularly if literally he's hitting balls from Yankee Stadium crashing into 30 Rock. It really made sense to go out to him for the first spot that we debuted at the Super Bowl.”
In addition to Meyers, the ad features “Today Show” hosts Craig Melvin, Al Roker and Carson Daly, “Law & Order: SVU” star Kelli Giddish, “SNL” cast member Kenan Thompson, and a person in an NBC peacock costume.
The peacock is the only one who is actually hit by a Judge home run ball.
Anthony Rieber covers sports media and business and professional sports (you know, games and trades and things). He has worked at Newsday since Aug. 31, 1998, and has been in his current position since Jan. 1, 2026.
