John Fanta’s new show, Fanta in 60, debuts Monday night at 6 p.m. ET on Peacock and the NBC Sports NOW FAST channel.
Ahead of the show’s launch, he spoke to Front Office Sports about what he’s striving for with the talk show, his hottest takes, a surreal interaction with a broadcasting icon, and his revelation that he’ll be a part of NBC’s Summer Olympics coverage in Los Angeles in 2028.
Front Office Sports: You’re starting this new talk show. A lot of your work with NBC and just professionally in general has been related to the games, whether that’s doing play-by-play or sidelines or studio. Do you see yourself ever wanting to have a daily national talk platform, kind of like Dan Patrick’s show or The Herd?
John Fanta: Well, look, I love all sports. And for me, I idolize those guys. They speak up about what they’ve done every day. And I think I don’t look at myself as just a play-by-play guy or just a host or just a reporter.’
I think a lot of people looked at my career up until this time last year and said, “Well, you know, he’s been a college basketball person.” And the biggest reason why I joined NBC was to show I could expand beyond that. And so for me, the same can be said of the medium that I’m doing it in that I love the idea of bringing this show into people’s living rooms. And we’re going to start by doing it one day a week. And, it’s my goal for us to grow a product that people enjoy. We’ll take it where we go. I wouldn’t say that I want 12 to 3 or 6 to 9 or, in this case, 6 to 7 every single day to trump the responsibilities I have elsewhere for the company. I think that everything can go hand in hand.
