Amazon has reportedly found its analyst for Thursday Night Football. According to NBC Sports’ Peter King, Kirk Herbstreit is the choice for the streaming platform and retailer. King reported the news in his weekly Football Morning in America column.
The decision comes a week after the New York Post‘s Andrew Marchand reported that Herbstreit was under consideration by Amazon after Troy Aikman signed with ESPN, Sean McVay decided to remain Los Angeles Rams coach, and San Francisco 49ers John Lynch declined the opportunity. (Former New Orleans Saints coach Sean Payton was also reportedly in the mix, but those discussions apparently didn’t progress.)
According to King, Herbstreit will continue his current role with ESPN/ABC as the network’s top college football game analyst and commentator on Saturday pregame show College GameDay.
Marchand reported that Herbstreit’s contract might allow him to broadcast NFL games with another network while continuing to call college football for ESPN. But that depended on how Disney’s lawyers interpreted his current agreement. Judging from Amazon’s decision, however, Herbstreit’s deal allows for that very option.
As King says in his column, Herbstreit seems like an unusual choice considering most of his broadcasting experience is in college football. But he’s called some NFL games during the past few years and has said he was interested in calling both sports if the opportunity was available.
Here is ESPN's Mel Kiper Jr. and Kirk Herbstreit breaking down the selection of Ravens QB Lamar Jackson in the 2018 NFL Draft: pic.twitter.com/Ztu9vdK9jo
The question now becomes who calls play-by-play alongside Herbstreit on Thursday Night Football. Amazon has pursued Al Michaels for the position, but ESPN is also interested in pairing him with Aikman on Monday Night Football. But if ESPN is somehow able to snatch Joe Buck away from Fox, Michaels will presumably go to Amazon.
The belief has been that Michaels prefers to work with an experienced analyst, rather than break in a first-timer like McVay or Payton. Herbstreit has mostly called college football, of course, but has plenty of experience broadcasting football, is a seasoned professional, and should work smoothly with Michaels.
ESPN's @KirkHerbstreit shares what he hopes both college football & NFL fans will gain from the new series 'QB21 with Kirk Herbstreit'
The 7-episode series features candid conversations with top #NFLDraft QB prospects
Amazon surely wanted to make a big splash with its TNF broadcast team and Herbstreit is a different enough choice to be intriguing, even if he might not carry the same recognition among NFL fans as Aikman or attract the curiosity that McVay or Payton would have.
But as Marchand has said in some of his analysis of the story, Herbstreit is, above all, a broadcaster. By that measure, he’s arguably the best choice for the position among available analysts. He’s not a coach-turned-broadcaster. There’s no question as to whether or not he can do the job.
And while Herbstreit is a personality, especially with college football commentary, he’s an insightful, informative analyst who explains to the viewer what happened and why very clearly. Additionally, he explains what coaches and players are thinking on many plays based on his conversations with them throughout the week. He’s not afraid to be critical or protect people with whom he has relationships.
Yet Herbstreit’s workload will also be a question going into the upcoming football season. Calling Thursday Night Football, then doing College GameDay on Saturday, followed by a college football broadcast for ESPN or ABC is a lot to take on. Other NFL broadcasters like Aikman have called Thursday night and Sunday games. But Herbstreit would obviously have one less day to make the transition from the NFL to college football, and already has to deal with going from the GameDay location Saturday morning to the game he calls in the evening.
Some believed that his more controversial commentary during the last college football season was a result of him being asked to do too much, calling games then appearing on ESPN’s studio coverage, followed by another game broadcast. Could that be an issue as Herbstreit attempts to juggle both NFL and college football obligations? Perhaps, but he certainly appears eager for the opportunity.
Ian Casselberry is a sports media columnist for BSM. He has previously written and edited for Awful Announcing, The Comeback, Sports Illustrated, Yahoo Sports, MLive, Bleacher Report, and SB Nation. You can find him on Twitter @iancass or reach him by email at iancass@gmail.com.
These days, WPLJ in New York City is a Christian station owned by the Educational Media Foundation. When Mike Breen was a kid in Yonkers though, it was one of the most influential rock stations in America and the man who is now known as the voice of the NBA wanted to be on the air there.
On the latest edition of Dan Le Batard’s South Beach Sessionspodcast, Breen revealed that he always loved sports. His first introduction to broadcasting though came from a neighbor named Tony Minecola. He was a few years older than Breen and studying to be a radio broadcaster in college.
“He built a radio station in his basement and played disc jockey,” Breen told Le Batard. “’He had commercials, records, you know, everything. Like it was a real radio station, only it only went from one room to the next. That was what he was into, and that’s what he was going to college for. And we used to hang out in the basement all the time. And one day he says, ‘Hey, why don’t you come in? You want to you want to be the DJ for a little bit?’ And I’m like, okay, let me try it.’ And I fell in love with it.”
Mike Breen didn’t just fall in love with the idea of radio. He saw it as a viable career and knew exactly where he wanted it to take him.
“I enjoyed being on the air and talking. So my initial thought was, ‘I’m going to be a disc jockey.’ WPLJ was like the big rock station in New York back at that time, and I thought, ‘I’m going to be a DJ on WPLJ.’ That was my first goal.
Through the 70s and early 80s, WPLJ was an album rock station. Some of its most iconic on air personalities included Carol Miller, Pat St. John, Fr. Bill Ayers, and Mark Goodman, who was eventually one of MTV’s original VJs.
Breen said he loved the rock music of the time, especially Jethro Tull and Bruce Springsteen, but he realized that a broadcasting career could keep him close to sports too.
Obviously, he chose well. That is not to say that he couldn’t have been a great DJ if given the chance, but he went on to be the voice of the New York Knicks and has called more NBA Finals games than anyone else in history.
WPLJ was out of the rock business by 1983 when it became a pop station.
CBS Sports is set to premiere new episodes of its franchise Beyond Limits, which celebrates athletes who go beyond the implicit boundaries of sports and society. Three half-hour episodes will be hosted by CBS Sports reporter AJ Ross, and will also air on CBS’ linear channel and stream live on Paramount+.
The first episode of the season is titled “Who I Am,” and it will feature Byron Perkins, who is the first openly gay football player at a historically black college or university (HBCU). Perkins is a redshirt senior at Hampton University. The show will also discuss the relationship he has with his mother and how she has impacted him both as a person and an athlete.
Two more episodes will premiere throughout the season – one on making sports adaptable and accessible; and the other featuring athletes who have moved into executive roles. The latter show includes interviews with NBA Executive Vice President and Head of Basketball Operations, Joe Dumars; New Orleans Pelicans Vice President of Basketball Operations and Team Development, Swin Cash; and NFL Executive Vice President of Football Operations, Troy Vincent.
The series, which first premiered in September 2021, is produced by the CBS Sports Race and Culture Unit, with senior producer Sarah M. Kazadi. Its first episode premieres on Sunday, June 11 at 1:30 p.m. EST/10:30 a.m. PST, and should provide fans with unique storytelling and spotlight into the journeys of various key figures in sports and media alike.
Neil Everett has become one of the faces of SportsCenter. After 23 years at ESPN, he announced that he is leaving the network.
Colleagues at the World Wide Leader took to Twitter to share their thoughts. It was universal praise from the people that knew and worked with Everett. Chief among them was his SportsCenter partner of fourteen years, Stan Verrett.
I started at espn in 2000, a few months after Neil Everett. We joined up for sportscenter from LA in 2009. For 14 years, he was the best teammate I could imagine. Selfless, caring, generous, and a pro’s pro. He’s moving on now, but we are brothers for life. That’ll never change.
Everett has spent the last two years as part of the television studio crew covering the Portland Trail Blazers. He told Front Office Sportsthat he will be seeking to expand his role with the team.
If Root Sports Northwest requires references, there are plenty ESPN colleagues past and present that were immediately ready to vouch for Neil Everett.
Neil Everett doesn’t believe in Twitter. Leave positive comments here and I will share with him. Or, I will just give you his number. Great teammate, great friend, many laughing fits with him. Loves animals, WA and Hawaii. And Oregon.
Neil Everett. Nicest guy. Old school SportsCenter cool. Crazy funny. Great writer. Loves sprint car racing. 23 years of all that? Blessed to have called him a teammate. Even more to call him a friend. pic.twitter.com/vH6GntFJyX
Mahalo to Neil Everett, the best I ever co-anchored with. And an even better person. *3 months into my gig at ESPN, invited me to his home for Thanksgiving *For a few years, we both refused to say “Thunder” on TV #Sonics *bonded over music, WA & much more.#SimplyTheBestpic.twitter.com/QG1ae9AE7v
Everett was not laid off. He turned down a new contract that would have forced him to take a pay cut.
The Walt Disney Company is in the middle of layoffs effecting every division. CEO Bob Iger has tasked his leaders with reducing costs by $5.5 billion and cutting 7000 jobs.
