Dick Vitale is the face of college basketball at ESPN and thanks to a new deal, it looks like that is a role he will continue to fill into the foreseeable future. Michael McCarthy of Front Office Sports reports that the boisterous analyst has been offered a contract extension that will keep him in Bristol through the 2021-22 college basketball season.
Vitale has been on the air with ESPN since the network started broadcasting college basketball games in December of 1979. This new contract ensures that he will be at the network for at least 42 seasons.
The former coach has plenty of value to ESPN beyond just his analyst work. He has become one of the faces of ESPN’s annual Jimmy V Foundation fundraising events. He is also one of the few remaining links to the network’s beginnings that is still on air with regularity.
Not long ago, Vitale joked that he would like to still be calling basketball games when he is 100 years old. He told McCarthy that doesn’t mean he plans on hanging around even if he is no longer an asset to ESPN.
“I’ll be able to tell when the time comes. If I feel like it’s not there, I will just tell them. I would not try to embarrass them, I would not try to embarrass my family and most of all I would not embarrass myself,” Vitale said. “But I feel as young as ever. I feel like 20, I act about 12. Then reality sets in when I look at the mirror. At my age, it can happen overnight. Bottom line? I feel really great. I don’t feel any different than when I was 45 or 50. I really don’t.”
Vitale turned 80 earlier this month and will be on the verge of 83 when the new deal expires. His age is brought up a lot on social media when fans and critics want to point out that Vitale is slipping. He told McCarthy that ageism has motivated him in recent years.
“I probably work harder now than I’ve ever worked in my life — because I want to make certain I don’t make mistakes on names or not knowing about a player’s life. I really pride myself on that. The bottom line is if I make a mistake, or Hubie [Brown, ESPN NBA analyst] makes a mistake, we’re senile, we’re old, we’re washed up,” Vitale said. “Does a young guy make a mistake? Oh, he made a slip. When you get into our numbers, there are cruel people out there. 99% aren’t like that. But there is that percentage that really can’t wait to knock you off.”
