Steve Kornacki will be a regular fixture on Sunday Night Football for the remainder of the season.
Kornacki, the national political correspondent for NBC News and MSNBC who manned the network’s election night touchscreen board, broke down NFL teams’ playoff odds and probability on Sunday Night Football last week. The reviews were positive, so they plan to keep him there, the network announced on Wednesday.
“Steve Kornacki will return to FOOTBALL NIGHT IN AMERICA for the remainder of the regular season to analyze NFL playoff probabilities,” NBC Sports PR tweeted, while he added, “So grateful for the chance to keep tracking the playoff race the rest of the way.”
“This feels like the Road to 270, except this is for the playoffs,” Kornacki told NBC’s Peter King about the experience. “We did a segment tonight where we were talking about the Cardinals falling to the eighth spot in the playoffs, and Minnesota moves into number seven, but the model still likes Arizona’s chances over Minnesota. It’s like looking at, ‘Well you know in Michigan, right now, Trump is 12 points ahead — but if you look at the ballots that are still to be counted, where they’re coming from, it says Biden.’ It’s a very similar thing to election night. I felt it right away.”
Following the announcement, Kornacki tweeted his gratitude for staying on the rest of the season.
“So grateful for the chance to keep tracking the playoff race the rest of the way,” he wrote.
So grateful for the chance to keep tracking the playoff race the rest of the way https://t.co/wyyKgmNBKt
— Steve Kornacki (@SteveKornacki) December 9, 2020
Kornacki became a household name during the 2020 election as it took days for a handful of states to be called. He was one of NBC’s main fixtures of their wall-to-wall coverage.
“We did two complete overnights. It’s a very confused timeline if I try to reconstruct it,” he told People Magazine about his dayslong experience covering the election. “I got home on Saturday and I slept for 15 and a half hours.”
