NBC’s primetime Sunday Night Football booth is bringing a new look to both its booth and its broadcast as it seeks to become primetime television’s number one show for the 12th straight year. With the regular season quickly approaching, the broadcast team of Mike Tirico, Cris Collinsworth, and Melissa Stark has worked throughout the summer to build a working chemistry with one another.
Mike Tirico enters this role after previously serving as the voice of Monday Night Football on ABC from 2006 to 2015, a role he entered replacing Al Michaels when NBC acquired the Sunday-night rights . Since that time, he has been the host of NBC’s Football Night in America and also continues to be the host of primetime coverage of the Olympic Games.
Now, as Michaels joins his producer Fred Gaudelli at Amazon Prime Video, Tirico will once again take his seat in the booth. While he knows Michaels set a high standard, he is confident that he and his colleagues can continue to reach it, especially following their call of the Pro Football Hall of Fame Game from Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium in Canton, Ohio in early August.
“If I learned anything in Canton, it’s that my instincts are to be trusted,” Tirico said. “We’re going to be fine. Everybody communicates; everybody connects, gets along [and we are] similar-minded folks. Sometimes when you look at sports television, I think the most valuable thing is putting together a group that fits and works well together.”
Being just the fourth full-time play-by-play announcer on Sunday Night Football is certainly something Tirico does not take lightly; however, at this stage in his career, it does not profoundly influence his mindset, if at all. With the start of the regular season on the precipice, Tirico is excited to get started and become a weekly fixture during primetime football on Sunday nights.
“It’s an assignment that I’ve worked for,” Tirico said. “I feel like I’ve completely prepared for [it] and I am surrounded by the best people. For me, there’s no angst about being the next person in that chair.”
Cris Collinsworth remains the constant in the broadcast booth as he enters his 14th season as an analyst in the booth. Now as he famously slides in the broadcast open each week, it will be Tirico instead of Michaels on his right. The change is not entirely distressing to Collinsworth, considering he and Tirico have previously called 21 NFL games together since 2016: more than a full season’s worth. With a new host of colleagues joining the team, he understands the importance of developing synergy among team members, but entering this season, he does not feel the previous flow has abated significantly.
“I understand there’s going to be a transition period of time, but we’ve already spent a lot of time together, obviously, getting ready for this season,” Collinsworth said. “There’s a real comfort already to just being a part of the group and being friends and being able to tell jokes about each other and on each other that typically don’t come until you’ve known somebody a couple years at least, and it’s just like a group I’m used to hanging out with already. I hope that’s what comes across on the air.”
Joining Tirico and Collinsworth on the broadcast team from the sidelines is Melissa Stark, a longtime reporter in both sports and news media. Stark had been an NFL Network host for the past 11 seasons following a stint at NBC News and MSNBC. She is set to return to the sidelines for the first time in nearly 20 years, as she previously worked in the role for Monday Night Football on ABC but left it in order to start a family.
“Sports was always my passion, so now here I am coming back four teenagers later,” Stark said. “[I’m] so excited to work with the very best in the business… and excited about all the new resources that we have on the sidelines.” Season 17 of Sunday Night Football on NBC will commence with the kickoff game between the defending Super Bowl champion Los Angeles Rams and Buffalo Bills on NBC and streaming on Peacock.
Three days later, the first Sunday night matchup of the year takes place when Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers visit Dak Prescott and the Dallas Cowboys, which will include the premiere of a new show open for the broadcast featuring 8-time Grammy Award winning singer Carrie Underwood. Both matchups are set to kick off at 8:20 EST/7:20 CST.
