Live From New York

As Saturday Night Live celebrates its 50th anniversary, you can't help but be nostalgic about all the great moments that have happened on the show over the past five decades.  Plenty of those moments have involved sports, obviously.  Athletes have hosted (some were good at it, others not so much).  Athletes have made cameos.  Athletes have been impersonated.  And there have been more sports-themed sketches than I can count!

My favorite episode hosted by an athlete has to be the 2001 episode with Derek Jeter.  The most ridiculous sketch that night was "Yankees Wives," when he dressed in drag along with David Wells and David Cone (who only appeared in that sketch).  There was also an outstanding piece during "Weekend Update" where he had a point/counterpoint with Red Sox fans on the topic "Derek Jeter sucks/No I don't."

Peyton Manning's episode in 2007 was also great.  Carrie Underwood was the musical guest in that episode, so it was going to be a win-win with me regardless.  But Peyton was legit funny, too!  (If you haven't seen his monologue from the time he hosted the Espys, I highly recommend you should.)  The best sketch of the night was probably the "United Way" digital short where he keeps screaming at kids telling them how much they suck at football.  He also had a separate "Weekend Update" appearance several years ago where he excitedly gives his review of Emily In Paris, complete with a beret.

Speaking of "Weekend Update" appearances, Caitlin Clark had one last season that was absolutely memorable!  Michael Che likes to make jokes at women's sports' expense.  Caitlin Clark showed up, as herself, to call him out and made him read some women's sports jokes that completely eviscerate him!  Add comedic chops to the list of Caitlin Clark's many talents!

The most recent athlete to host SNL was Travis Kelce in 2023, fresh off the first Chiefs-Eagles Super Bowl.  It was such a great episode, and he did such a great job as host!  As she was making the talk show rounds this week, Heidi Gardner mentioned that episode and actually apologized to Taylor Swift for a sketch where she's lying in bed with him the entire time!  There's also an absurd sketch where he takes his American Girl doll to tea and another where Jason shows up.

Other athlete hosts have included Michael Jordan, Wayne Gretzky and Jeff Gordon (among others).  J.J. Watt and John Cena's episodes were great.  The Rock is part of the Five-Timers Club.  It isn't just athletes, either.  George Steinbrenner has hosted SNL (the actual George Steinbrenner, not the Larry David Seinfeld version)!

One athlete who didn't host, but left a memorable impression nonetheless was Carmelo Anthony.  In 2011, there was an episode where Elton John was both the host and musical guest.  The first sketch of the night was ESPN Classic: Ladies Shot Put.  One of the "competitors" was Carmela St. Knix, who "stands 6'8 and used to live in Denver."  This was right after Melo was traded from the Nuggets to the Knicks.

Charles Barkley has hosted four times, but I actually think his best SNL "appearances" are in the Inside the NBA parodies.  Kenan Thompson plays Chuck in those sketches because of course he does!  It's just one of the many spot-on impressions of sports figures that Kenan does.  His Lavar Ball is absurd, and his David Ortiz is great!

Kenan's version of Big Papi always talks about food and reads promos for ridiculous sponsors.  It all came together when they did the SNL at Home episodes during COVID.  "Big Papi's Big Dominican Lunch" was three minutes of brilliance!  After reading off all the ingredients, the step-by-step instructions were: 1. buy a big-ass pot, 2. cook everything in the pot.  Then, at the end, we got Big Papi's recipe for chicken pot pie: 1. eat a chicken, 2. smoke a little pot, 3. eat a whole pie.

While I'm not as familiar with SNL's early years, there are a couple memorable sports moments I've learned about through the documentaries that have been released as part of the anniversary celebration.  In 1985, Hulk Hogan and Mr. T co-hosted an episode where Billy Crystal had both of them laughing hysterically throughout one sketch.  Then, in 1986, Billy Martin hosted the season 11 finale.  In an obvious play on George Steinbrenner's constant firing and rehiring him as Yankees manager, Billy gets "fired" by Lorne in the second-to-last sketch before setting the studio on fire at the end of the episode.  Only Jon Lovitz was saved, and they weren't even sure if SNL would stay on the air or be cancelled.

SNL is still going strong nearly 40 years later, so we know the answer to the cancellation question!  It was actually in the Fall of 1986, during season 12, when sports and SNL converged.  Because of that memorable World Series Game 6 between the Mets and Red Sox, a scheduled airing of SNL was cancelled for the first time in its history.  They still did the show live, but it didn't air until two weeks later, with an apology from Ron Darling for the game going long at the top of the episode.

Another SNL-sports intersection came in February 2001.  That was Week 2 in the original XFL and the featured game between the Los Angeles Xtreme and Chicago Enforcers went into double overtime.  As a result, the SNL episode hosted by Jennifer Lopez started 45 minutes late.  Lorne was NOT happy!  And NBC immediately changed its policy so that any live sports coverage is cut off at 11:00 (with exceptions) whenever there's a new episode of SNL.

Jennifer Lopez also hosted the new episode of SNL that followed NBC's Olympic coverage on the second-to-last night of the Vancouver Games in 2010.  During Olympic coverage that night, Bob Costas correctly predicted that there would be "one or two Olympic gags" in that episode.  The one I remember most was where she was playing a news anchor doing the sports highlights and was terrified for the ski jumper when the ramp just ended and they went flying into the air.

That's just a sampling of the memorable athlete hosting gigs and sports-related moments on Saturday Night Live over the years.  I'm sure there are plenty I'm forgetting.  It's a standard go-to, especially around major events like the Super Bowl and the NCAA Tournament (the "NCAA Tournament Best of the White Guys" video was another classic).  It makes sense, too.  Because Saturday Night Live has always offered a satirical commentary on what's going on in the world and important in people's lives.  Sports have always been important to people (and, let's be honest, easy to make fun of), so they've always been an easy target.  And they will continue to be as long as SNL is on the air.