I’m 32 years old, and for the majority of my life, the college football schedule on NBC has consisted of Notre Dame, the Bayou Classic between Grambling State and Southern, and the Gator Bowl, for some reason.
So it was a mild surprise last week when it was reported the network had signed on to air Big Ten games in primetime in the conference’s new media rights deals. In reality, it makes a lot of sense to pair the midwestern — albeit pushing those boundaries by the decade — conference with the network that airs Notre Dame, the midwestern catholic institution.
What doesn’t make immediate sense, however, is who will the broadcasters be for this new package.
It was reported Sunday that Jac Collinsworth and Jason Garrett will officially be the network’s broadcast crew for their exclusive coverage of Notre Dame. To pretend that the pairing would be anything short of a disappointment would be an understatement. Collinsworth, whose career accomplishments include announcing the Atlantic 10 basketball tournament and being Cris Collinsworth’s son, is 27 years old and a rather “green” play-by-play announcer. Garrett has no discernable ties to the school and has a half-dozen USFL games under his belt as a broadcaster. Not exactly a glowing endorsement of the “farm team” NBC has put together to announce major college football.
When the deal between the Big Ten and NBC was reported, one of the first questions that popped into my head was “Who in the world is going to announce Big Ten football for NBC?”
Seriously. Kick that around in your brain for a second. Is there an obvious choice for you? Because there isn’t one to me. I completely understand they’ve got time to figure it out…but are the current options Dan Hicks — who I don’t believe has announced a football game for the network in nearly a decade — or acquiring a free agent? Chris Vosters, who will need to work around his schedule as the new television play-by-play voice of the Chicago Blackhawks during October and November? Brandon Gaudin? John Sadak? The list could go on and on but each name, to me, would continue to have a question mark behind it.
Who is going to be the analyst? Does anyone jump off the page to you? Because they don’t to me. NBC, as evidenced by their choices of Doug Flutie, Tony Dungy, Drew Brees, and now Garrett to serve as Notre Dame analysts, doesn’t subscribe to the theory that you need to pair someone with ties to the school or conference to their broadcast crews, which I’m not sure I understand.
It’s certainly not a requirement to have a good broadcast, but the idea of Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney someday working for the Big Ten Network or former Northwestern linebacker and current Northwestern head coach Pat Fitzgerald being the lead analyst on the SEC Network just doesn’t make much sense, does it?
The endeavor is already a costly one for NBC, which is reportedly set to pay all 16 Big Ten schools the same amount they currently pay Notre Dame per year. Obviously, you would think that would make this a top priority for NBC. But their recent — somewhat head-scratching — decisions in the Notre Dame broadcast booth don’t instill much optimism that the Big Ten on NBC‘s broadcast booth will be one of the premier announcing crews in the game.
In the last few years, networks have made it abundantly clear they view their primary announcing crews as incredibly important. Tony Romo’s contract extension with CBS was viewed as a boondoggle for the former Cowboy. Now with the movement of Joe Buck, Troy Aikman, and Tom Brady? It’s run of the mill.
Will NBC put the same priority on their college football broadcasts? ESPN unveiled their 26 (!) college football announcing crews late last week, and I got to their eighth best crew before I started to wonder if NBC would put together something better. For all of the criticism ESPN takes for their college football coverage — mostly centered around a perceived SEC bias — the quality of their broadcast crews has rarely been in doubt.
Can the same be said for NBC? Time will tell on their upcoming Notre Dame broadcast booth, but if the Fighting Irish are still going to be viewed as the primary broadcast for the peacock, the underwhelming selections for the 2022 season don’t give Big Ten fans much hope for 2023.
Garrett Searight is Barrett Media’s News Editor, which includes writing bi-weekly industry features and a weekly column. He has previously served as Program Director and Afternoon Co-Host on 93.1 The Fan in Lima, OH, and is the radio play-by-play voice of Northern Michigan University hockey. Reach out to him at Garrett@BarrettMedia.com.
