It will be a season of change at NBC in 2022. Al Michaels and Michelle Tafoya are gone from Sunday Night Football. We already knew Mike Tirico would be in the play-by-play role. On Friday, we learned that Melissa Stark would be the broadcast’s new sideline reporter.
Many had speculated that Kathryn Tappen was in line to land the Sunday Night Football job. She worked alongside Tafoya during the playoffs. Instead, Andrew Marchand of The New York Post reports that NBC is importing Stark from NFL Network.
Melissa Stark is no stranger to primetime NFL broadcasts, having been a reporter on ABC’s Monday Night Football broadcasts from 2000 until 2003. She also isn’t a stranger to NBC, having been a former correspondent on The Today Show.
NBC locked down Cris Collinsworth with a new contract that keeps him at the network through the 2025 season. That deal caught many who assumed that Drew Brees would be ascending to the Sunday Night Football booth off guard. With Al Michaels off to Amazon and Michelle Tafoya starting a political commentary career though, Collinsworth was needed to create some continuity for viewers.
