His voice is unmistakable, his humor makes his broadcasts entertaining and oh yeah, he’s everywhere these days. Jason Benetti has stepped into the limelight as more than just a local baseball television announcer.
Benetti added a new feather in his cap a couple of weekends ago, picking up lead play-by-play duties for the new NBC-produced MLB Sunday Leadoff games seen on Peacock. He will be joined by a series of rotating analysts representing the teams in each game.
Benetti’s main gig during the summer months is the White Sox. Since 2016, when he took over for Ken “Hawk” Harrelson, he’s been the lead television voice for the team. For most people, the two fairly high-profile jobs would be enough, not for Benetti.
He also fills on an occasional Chicago Bulls broadcast for NBC Sports Chicago during the fall and winter months. Benetti is also employed by ESPN. He joined the network as a play-by-play commentator for college basketball in 2011. Since then, he’s also called college football, baseball and lacrosse games, high school football and Major League Baseball, as well as NFL, college football and MLB on ESPN Radio. Benetti serves as the play-by-play man for ESPN’s MLB StatCast AI coverage of the Wild Card and Home Run Derby.
Benetti also called his first Olympics this past year. In 2021, he was named the play-by-play announcer for NBC’s coverage of baseball at the Summer Olympic Games.
Benetti graduated from Syracuse in 2005 with bachelor’s degrees in broadcast journalism, economics and psychology. He then went on to earn his J.D. at Wake Forest School of Law in 2011.
The Illinois native gives back to his alma mater, as he is involved with the Burton Blatt Institute at Syracuse University’s Communication Hope through Assistive Technology camp. He has previously taught sports broadcasting as an adjunct professor at S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communication.
ROAD TO WHITE SOX/ESPN/NBC
Benetti, like many of us that were fortunate enough to have a radio station at our high school, joined his school’s radio station. At Homewood-Flossmoor High School in Flossmoor, Illinois, Benetti was a regular disc jockey on WHFH and also did play-by-play of various Vikings sporting events.
As mentioned, he attended Syracuse where he called lacrosse and women’s hoops. Then upon graduation he enrolled at Wake Forest’s school of law. While there, Benetti was the voice of High Point basketball games, Syracuse Chiefs baseball and he did high school sports for Time Warner Cable.
Benetti served as an intern for Chicago sports radio station 670 The Score. In 2011 Benetti joined ESPN, where his broadcasting career would move him into television, despite his childhood preference for radio-only broadcasting. Benetti would call select college basketball games for the ESPN3 online service, and then move on to ESPN2 and ESPNU. In 2013 Benetti called his first football game for ESPN’s syndicated American Athletic Conference package.
In 2020, Benetti signed a multi-year extension with ESPN.
WHY IS HE SO GOOD?
There is something inherently likable about the way Benetti calls a game. He has the authoritative voice you like to hear from an announcer, yet he isn’t monotone. When he gets excited during a game, he doesn’t shout and scream, it’s much more natural. It sounds just like it should in the flow of a game that has big moments. It’s a good lesson for some young broadcasters that like to scream their way through those times.
Benetti is entertaining to watch. Whether you’re an old school follower of baseball and feel that batting average is still important, or a newer, metrics fan, he can appeal to you. He doesn’t rely on the stats. Benetti will take those stats and make a story, or build an argument with them. It’s a much cleaner way to get the point across rather than just the straight numbers.
I like the underlying sarcasm that will find its way into his telecasts from time to time. Benetti is a smart guy and you can always tell when he doesn’t completely agree with something. It’s not delivered in a mean-spirited way, but the point is made, usually in a very entertaining way.
To me, the mark of a great play-by-play announcer is not just how he/she calls a game, it’s how they make their analyst sound. Are they getting the best out of their partners? When you work with someone consistently, it’s an easier process than when you are working with a rotating group. When Benetti is calling White Sox baseball games locally in Chicago, you can tell that he and Steve Stone are on the same page. They get the reps every day and by now, know each other extremely well and play off each other the same.
With NBC’s MLB Sunday Leadoff games, he’ll be working with a different analyst every week. One from each team’s local broadcast. For some, this would be difficult to deal with. Not for Benetti. He already works with a number of different analysts during his college football and basketball duties on ESPN. His personality lends itself to making each telecast unique based on who he may be working with for that game. You might say he’s really looking forward to the chance to do this.
“It feels like you’re hosting a cocktail party every week,” Benetti said on a recent NBC media conference call. “This one friend doesn’t know this other friend, or they might, but the idea is to make sure that there’s always conversation and to get to know people quickly. I have found I really have a love for that.” he added. “When I heard about the different analysts rotating in, it was my favorite part of the whole thing. I just the love the idea that every telecast is different.”
“There’s a reason we picked Jason,” NBC Sports executive producer Sam Flood said. “We did our homework. We know him. We love what he does, and we think he’s the perfect person to be in that middle seat at the dinner party.”
Benetti compared the experience to an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm on the conference call.
“I watched a Curb Your Enthusiasm episode from either last season or the season before where they were having a dinner party, and there’s this whole discussion about who’s the best dinner party middle, who the best person is to sit in the middle of the table to keep the conversation going,” said Benetti. “I think all of us aspire to be that at dinner parties if we’re at all an extrovert, even a little bit.
“I think in my understanding of people, like I’ve done a lot of games with a person once, and the way I see it is when you sit down to do a game, the audience does not care at all if you’re best friends with somebody or if you just met them for the first time. And so, it’s on us, it’s on me, it’s on everybody in the booth, to understand each other and maybe have a meal before the game or talk on the phone or whatever.”
He added that it’s important that everyone in the booth has an opportunity to be at his/her best. Benetti realizes that the task of making that happen falls on him.
DID YOU KNOW?
Benetti was born 10 weeks prematurely and hospitalized for three months. During the three months in the hospital, Benetti had a respiratory illness while in intensive care that deprived his blood of oxygen. It is believed that caused his cerebral palsy, which was diagnosed when Benetti was a toddler. He underwent years of physical therapy and two surgeries to improve his ability to walk.
Benetti’s cerebral palsy prevented him from playing tuba during marching band season. As he told ESPN Front Row in 2014, “I wasn’t balanced enough to carry it in marching band.” Not wanting to exclude him, the band director asked him to serve as the halftime broadcaster for their marching events.
He helped to launch a Cerebral Palsy Foundation campaign called “Awkward Moments with Jason Benetti” in order to bring awareness through humor to the awkwardness that surrounds those with disabilities. The animated videos are voiced by Benetti.
Benetti explains the reason he got involved. “There are moments and conversations in our society where people rely on accidental snap judgements or speak without forethought or understanding. That’s ok. We all do it, and sometimes it is even funny.” he said in a media release back in 2018. “But, if unaddressed, we don’t know how to move past them. So, the goal of the campaign is to illuminate these moments when we might be on mental autopilot, and – by using humor – show people that they are having misperception about people – and learn to think differently.”
CONCLUSION
Full disclosure, I’ve worked with Jason before and I find him to be not only a terrific broadcaster but also a really good guy. The thing that always struck me about Benetti is how comfortable in his own skin he really is. He is an inspiration to some, a mentor to others and an example for young broadcasters to follow. He is skilled, prepared, aware and a rising star in the industry.
Andy Masur is a columnist for BSM and works for WGN Radio as an anchor and play-by-play announcer. He also teaches broadcasting at the Illinois Media School. During his career he has called games for the Chicago Cubs, San Diego Padres and Chicago White Sox. He can be found on Twitter @Andy_Masur1 or you can reach him by email at Andy@Andy-Masur.com.
