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According to one Emmy Award-winning journalist and ESPN anchor, black announcers and former players are well equipped to hold down positions in an NFL broadcasting booth.
Sportscaster Michael Eaves tweeted his thoughts about the league’s announcing teams on various networks, pointing out the lack of color within the respective booths of each network:
"I sincerely respect every person on this list, as they are all very good at what they do. However, I KNOW there are black announcers and former players more than capable of holding down positions on a network’s #1 broadcasting team for a league that’s 69% black"
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This comes on the heels of Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady signing a contract with Fox Sports to be an NFL analyst after retiring alongside Kevin Burkhardt.
In March this year, Rob Parker of Fox Sports 1 had the same query as Eaves about the lack of color in the NFL announcing booths.
On the Fox Sports Radio show The Odd Couple, which he co-hosts with Chris Broussard, Parker said he has an issue as to why there hasn't been a black NFL analyst on a significant primetime broadcast:
“I got a problem with why there hasn’t been to this point, a Black analyst on a major primetime broadcast.”
Parker conceded that black broadcasters get chances on NFL pregame shows, explicitly calling out James Brown of CBS Sports and Michael Strahan of Fox Sports. Parker went on to elaborate:
“The big paying jobs and the biggest ones have so far not had that guy in there.”
He went on to explain that outside of Hall of Fame running back OJ Simpson in the 1980s and Booger McFarland and Louis Riddick on Monday Night Football, he is waiting on a network to pay a man of color $18 million to call 17 NFL games:
“Other than OJ [Simpson] for those couple of years on Monday Night Football in the ‘80s, and I’m not ignoring him, and the cup of coffee and sweet roll that Louis Riddick got and Booger McFarland, other than that we’ve been shut out... And I’m still waiting for them to pay a Black man $18 million to call 17 football games.”
The only black announcer in a primetime NFL booth this season
In the primetime broadcast booths to call NFL games this season, Mike Tirico of NBC Sports will be the only announcer of color. Tirico will be paired with longtime NFL analyst Cris Collinsworth on Sunday Night Football.
Tirico replaces Al Michaels as NBC’s top NFL announcer as the latter will be with ESPN college football analyst Kirk Herbstreit on Amazon.
Tirico is no stranger to being the lead NFL announcer. He was paired with former NFL head coach Jon Gruden for seven seasons in the booth of Monday Night Football. We’ll see Tirico in the booth when the 2022 NFL season gets underway.
