There are few places where Jalen Brunson could expect a warmer reception than Madison Square Garden. On September 26, Studio 8H might come close.
The Knicks captain and NBA Finals MVP will host Saturday Night Live’s Season 52 premiere, alongside musical guest KATSEYE. After helping deliver the franchise’s first championship in 53 years, Brunson arrives with the kind of goodwill most hosts could only dream of—and with an opportunity for SNL to make its season opener feel like an event for the entire city.
A Knicks championship carries a particular weight in New York. Generations of fans knew the team mostly through disappointment, false starts, and stories about how things used to be. This year finally gave them a championship of their own, and Brunson will walk onto the SNL stage as the face of that shared experience.
The excitement, in other words, is already built in. The question is what SNL does with it.
NBA stars have helped the show start seasons before. Michael Jordan opened Season 17 in 1991 after winning his first championship. Charles Barkley kicked off Season 19 in 1993, and LeBron James launched Season 33 in 2007. Jordan’s episode, in particular, remains a useful blueprint for what SNL can do with a superstar athlete who doesn’t necessarily need to carry every sketch himself.
His appearance opposite Al Franken’s Stuart Smalley is probably the clearest example. The joke was largely contained in the casting: Jordan, the embodiment of supreme athletic confidence, sitting across from a relentlessly encouraging self-help guru determined to bolster his self-esteem. Jordan didn’t need to suddenly become Phil Hartman. He played along, let Franken drive the scene, and gave the premise exactly what it needed.
That same episode also gave viewers “Schmitts Gay,” the memorable beer commercial parody starring Chris Farley and Adam Sandler. Jordan had nothing to do with it. Even with the biggest basketball star in the world in the building, SNL still made room for SNL.
Hosting without an extensive sketch-comedy background obviously presents challenges, but it can also free the writers from the obligation to build the entire show around the guest. Brunson doesn’t need to prove his range across ten sketches. A deadpan reaction here, a well-timed entrance there, or a willingness to look ridiculous might be all a sketch needs from him while the cast handles the heavier comic lifting.
At the start of a season, that balance can be especially valuable. The premiere is supposed to reintroduce the ensemble, establish new combinations, and give viewers some sense of what they’re going to be watching for the next eight months. Brunson can be the attraction that gets people through the door without requiring the entire episode to become a Jalen Brunson showcase.
And if SNL wants reinforcements, he has some obvious ones.
Knicks teammates Josh Hart and Karl-Anthony Towns would both be natural candidates for cameos. Hart, in particular, already has an easy rapport with Brunson as his co-host on The Roommates Show. That gives the writers something to work with before either player ever sees a cue card.
There is also plenty of overlap between Madison Square Garden’s celebrity row and SNL’s extended family. Tina Fey, Tracy Morgan, Ben Stiller, and Jimmy Fallon were among the familiar faces cheering on the Knicks during their championship run. Any one of them popping up Saturday night could help extend the celebration without turning the premiere into a cameo parade.
Used carefully, that wider circle could make the night feel unmistakably New York: Brunson at the center, the current cast doing the work, and a few familiar faces helping connect SNL to the city that has spent the past several months celebrating the Knicks.
It would also be a welcome change of pace after a run of season premieres that haven’t always shown SNL in its ideal opening-night form.
Last year’s Season 51 premiere with Bad Bunny was heavily tailored to its host’s persona. There is certainly value in that approach, especially with a performer whose voice and appeal are so specific, but it can also leave a premiere feeling more like a star vehicle than a reintroduction to the ensemble.
Season 50 presented a different complication. Jean Smart was an inspired booking for the show’s milestone year, but she was fighting through illness. Chloe Fineman later revealed that Smart protected her voice during rehearsals by miming while writers read her lines. Fineman praised Smart’s performance, and Smart deserves plenty of credit for getting through the show, but it was hardly an ideal set of circumstances for one of SNL’s most scrutinized premieres.
The season before that was even stranger. Season 49 began with Pete Davidson after the writers’ strike wiped out the end of the previous season and delayed SNL’s return in the fall. The actors’ strike was still underway when the show came back, making the premiere less a typical launch than a restart after months of industry upheaval.
Brunson arrives under very different circumstances. SNL has a beloved local champion, an audience already eager to celebrate him, and a host whose presence naturally opens the door for the ensemble and the city around him to become part of the show.
There is also added resonance in the timing. The episode arrives 25 years after September 11, and SNL’s return in the aftermath of the attacks remains one of the defining expressions of the show’s relationship with New York. Its September 29, 2001 episode opened with first responders, Mayor Rudy Giuliani, and a brief exchange with Lorne Michaels that gave a grieving city permission, in its own small way, to laugh again.
The circumstances could hardly be more different now, of course. But the connection between SNL and its hometown remains central to what makes the show distinct.
It broadcasts to the country and around the world—and pairing Brunson with global girl group KATSEYE nicely reflects that reach—but its home still matters. New York gives SNL its rhythms, its characters, its attitude, and, every so often, a moment it is uniquely positioned to capture.
Brunson already helped bring New York a championship. On September 26, SNL has a chance to let him bring some of that feeling to Studio 8H.
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You forgot to mention Mariska Hargitay.