Brent Musburger

Brent Woody Musburger (born May 26, 1939, in Portland, Oregon) is an American sportscaster for the ABC and ESPN television networks.

Biography

Early life and career

Musburger was raised in Big Timber, a small Montana city midway between Bozeman and Billings. He was an umpire for minor league baseball teams during the 1950s. He was also a boyhood friend of former Major League pitcher Dave McNally. Musburger's brother, Todd Musburger, is considered one of the top sports agents in the business.

Educated at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism, Musburger began his career as a sportswriter for the now-defunct "Chicago American" newspaper. In his column in that paper, Musburger famously referred to Tommie Smith and John Carlos as "black-skinned storm troopers" for their protest of racial injustice in the United States with a Black Power salute on the medal stand during the 1968 Summer Olympics. Asked about his comments decades later, Musburger granted that his words, which likened Smith and Carlos to Nazis, were "a bit harsh", but he stood by the core of his criticism of the pair's action:::— Musburger, as quoted by "The New York Times" in 1999

Beginning in the late 1960s, Musburger worked in television, first for local stations in Chicago and Los Angeles. Musburger worked alongside Connie Chung during his tenure doing local Los Angeles newscasts during the early 1970s.

CBS Sports

Beginning in late 1973, Musburger was doing play-by-play for CBS Sports. He started out doing regular season National Football League games (future "The NFL Today" co-host Irv Cross was also doing NFL games at that time as well). Musburger was paired with Tommy Mason or Bart Starr, who provided the color commentary. A year later, Wayne Walker would be paired with Musburger in the booth.

By 1975, at CBS, Musburger went from doing the NFL play-by-play (and other items, mostly on CBS' "Sports Saturday/Sunday" programs) to rise to prominence as the host of the network's National Football League studio show, "The NFL Today". Suddenly, Musburger began to cover many assignments for CBS Sports. Among the other events he covered, either as studio host or play-by-play announcer, were college football and basketball, the National Basketball Association (on CBS' "NBA on CBS" series), the U.S. Open (tennis) tournament, and The Masters golf tournament. He would even lend his talents to weekend afternoon fare such as The World's Strongest Man contests and the like. Musburger also called Major League Baseball games for CBS Radio.

NFL Today

But it was Musburger's association with "The NFL Today" that made him famous. During his tenure, the CBS' NFL pregame show was consistently the #1 rated pregame show. One of the signatures of the program was Musburger's show-opening teases to the various games CBS would cover, along with live images from the various stadiums. Musburger's accompanying intro to each visual, "You're looking live at..." became one of his catch phrases.

Musburger made headlines when he got into a fist-fight with "The NFL Today"'s betting analyst Jimmy "The Greek" Snyder in a Manhattan bar in late 1980. Only two years earlier, the two had co-announced the 1978 World Series of Poker. However, the fist-fight incident was quickly regarded as water under the bridge as the two cheerfully appeared on "The NFL Today" the following week wearing boxing gloves on camera.

Late 1980's

By the late 1980s, Musburger was CBS' top sportscaster. He was now the main host to pretty much all the events that CBS Sports covered, the NBA Finals, the NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship, college football, the Belmont Stakes, and others. He even hosted a New Year's Eve countdown for CBS. Musburger is generally regarded as the first broadcaster to apply the term "March Madness" to the annual NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship tournament.

CBS power shift

Early in 1990, there was a new regime who held the mantle of power at CBS. Internally, some of the upper echelon management started showing concern about Musburger gaining too much power at CBS, a claim however that Musburger had later stated stemmed from the other direction, that CBS was deluging him with too many assignments. Much of this came about when Musburger added CBS television's play-by-play duties of Major League Baseball to his resume.

Dismissal from CBS

During the early morning hours of April Fools' Day of 1990, Musburger was dismissed from CBS. His final assignment for CBS came the following evening, doing play-by-play for the 1990 NCAA men's basketball final, which was Duke versus UNLV. When the game was completed, Brent, on camera, thanked the audience and the many people at CBS Sports, and the analysts that he had worked with through the years like Billy Packer, who was standing next to Brent as he parlayed his swan song. He finished by saying cquote| Folks, I've had the best seat in the house. Thanks for sharing it, I'll see you down the road.

Musburger would soon be replaced by Jack Buck for the baseball play-calling duties. Ironically, Musburger called the 1984 World Series for CBS Radio, with Jack Buck as his commentating partner. His position at "The NFL Today" was filled by Greg Gumbel.

ABC Sports and ESPN

Following his dismissal from CBS, Musburger considered several offers - including one to return to Chicago and work at superstation WGN (which broadcast Chicago Cubs games). Musburger ultimately settled at ABC. With Al Michaels (at the time) firmly entrenched as ABC's top broadcaster, Musburger would not fill that role. He would focus on events such as college football and basketball.

Soon afterwards, ABC's association with ESPN (under the Disney umbrella) would allow him to now have two venues in which to work from, and since Brent's hiring by ABC in 1990 [ [http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,317495,00.html After being fired from CBS, Brent Musburger lands a high-profile job at ABC and a lucrative contract] ] , and the merger with ESPN in the late 1990s, Brent has called events as diverse as Major League Baseball, NBA games (on television and he also called some NBA Finals series during the late 1990s to the early 2000s for ESPN Radio, where he also from January 1993 to December 2003 hosted a 10-minute and later five-minute daily show called "SportsBeat", which offered Brent's takes on current sports events around the globe), golf tournaments, the Indianapolis 500, Little League World Series, soccer games, college football (usually games involving teams from the Big Ten Conference.) and even some NFL games (including hosting halftime duties for "Monday Night Football"). Musburger has also covered the Tour de France for ABC.

Musburger was cited by Lincoln, Nebraska police in September 2005 for consuming alcohol in public and having an open container in his car after leaving a Nebraska Cornhuskers-Pittsburgh Panthers football game. He later paid a small fine.

Voice of ESPN on ABC

Starting in 2006, Musburger has called ABC Sports' college football prime time series, along with analysts Bob Davie and Kirk Herbstreit. Musburger called the 2007 Rose Bowl, taking over for the recently retired ABC icon Keith Jackson. Davie and Herbstreit provided the color commentary.

After Al Michaels was hired by NBC in February 2006, Musburger could now be seen as the face of ABC Sports/ESPN on ABC, although he does not have nearly as many assignments as he did when he was employed by CBS. However, his importance at ABC Sports is still in evidence, as recently he was the main studio host during ABC's coverage of the 2006 World Cup, and was also named the studio host for ESPN and ABC's NASCAR coverage, which he lost after the 2007 season.

Controversy

On September 18, 2006, University of Southern California Sports Information Director Tim Tessalone sent a formal letter to ESPN and a copy to the Pacific Ten Conference complaining that Musburger revealed privileged information in his broadcast of the September 16, 2006, NCAA football game in which the USC Trojans hosted the Nebraska Cornhuskers. Musburger disclosed that he learned from a pre-game conversation with Trojans quarterback John David Booty a signal Booty uses to pass to receivers. USC claims this information was for private background purposes only. cquote|What he did was unconscionable. In my 28 years, I've never seen such an egregious breach of trust. Brent is not a rookie at this, and he should know better, said Tessalone. Within hours, ESPN and Musburger both released a separate statement that they regretted the confusion. Musburger also appeared on ESPN Radio's "Dan Patrick Show" a few days later to discuss the incident, in which he said that there was never an intention of putting team secrets on the air. The sports world and media and fans have been divided regarding the incident. [ [http://msn.foxsports.com/cfb/story/5981168?FSO1&ATT=HMA msn.foxsports.com/cfb/story] ]

Career timeline

*1973–1975: NFL on CBS Play-by-Play
*1975–1980: NBA on CBS Lead Play-by-Play
*1975–1989: The NFL Today Studio Host [ [http://espn.go.com/abcsports/bcs/columns/musburger_brent/bio.html Bowl Championship Series - Musburger, Brent ] ]
*1981–1984: NCAA Basketball on CBS Studio Host
*1983–1985: The Masters hole announcer [http://www.sportsline.com/cbssports/news/031005masters3 NFL, MLB, NBA, NCAA, Fantasy Sports News - CBSSports.com Live Scores, Stats, Schedules ] ]
*1986–1989: The Masters host
*1985–1990: NCAA Basketball on CBS Lead Play-by-Play
* ?–1988: NCAA Football on CBS Play-by-Play
*1990–1996: Monday Night Football Studio Host [http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,317495,00.html Brent bounces back | Brent Musberger | Television News | TV | Entertainment Weekly ] ]
*1990–present: NCAA Football on ABC Play-by-Play
*1994–1995: MLB on ABC #2 Play-by-Play
*1998, 2006: World Cup Studio Host
*2002–?: NBA on ESPN and NBA on ABC Play-by-Play
*1990–?, 2004-present: Little League World Series Play-by-Play [ [http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2004/writers/richard_deitsch/06/25/deitsch.circus/index.html SI.com - Writers - Richard Deitsch: I want more Brent Musburger on TV - Friday June 25, 2004 2:42PM ] ]
*2005–present: NASCAR on ABC; Indianapolis 500 studio host [ [http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,650222297,00.html Deseret News | Move over, football, hoops: NASCAR is back on ESPN ] ]
*2006–present: Saturday Night Football Play-by-Play
*2007–present: Rose Bowl Play-by-Play

tyle

Musburger has a down-home manner of speaking, often addressing his viewers as "folks" or "partner." However, when the moment arises, Brent can come up with classically intense statements filled with hyperbole, superlatives and interjections coupled with his perfect enunciation and speaking voice at a moment's notice, aurally delivered in a staccato he no doubt honed and crafted during his tenure as a television news anchorman in Los Angeles in the early 1970s.

In a "Sports Illustrated" profile done on Brent in January 1984 and written by William Taaffe, Brent had this to say about his craft and endeavor:

CNN Sports Illustrated's Stewart Mandel selected him as the second-best college football announcer, behind Ron Franklin. Mandel said of Musburger, cquote|His voice will always be associated with some of the sports' most memorable modern moments.

Famous Calls and Utterances

Other appearances and pop culture references

Musburger has appeared in several feature films as himself, including "Rocky II", "The Main Event", "The Waterboy", and "Mickey". An action figure of Musburger was released on November 2006, as part of the "Rocky II" series of figures.

In the comedy series "Friends" he is mentioned in the episode "The One Where Nana Dies Twice."

Musburger recorded his voice doing the play-by-play for the Konami video game "ESPN NBA Tonight", which was released in 2000 (ESPN analyst Stuart Scott did the color).

Deity to Oakland, CA band The Matches.

He is mentioned in the second season episode City on the Edge of Forever of South Park.

References

* Sandomir, Richard "TV SPORTS; Now on Film: Raised Fists And the Yogi Love Letters", "New York Times", 6 Aug. 1999