In the early years when one dreams about their future, aspiring sportscasters will often think about calling the College Football National Championship Game, the World Series or the Stanley Cup Final – annual signature events that captivate sports fans and attract millions of viewers worldwide. Sean McDonough is no different.
Eventually, most aspiring broadcasters come to realize the challenge to reach such a pinnacle in a career is extremely difficult, if not near-insurmountable, and they eventually end up working either somewhere else in sports media or in a different industry entirely. Few play-by-play announcers have the chance to call any championship round in any sport – let alone more than one and on repeated occasions.
McDonough is in that select group, but if not for his internal motivation, love of professional sports and sagacious advice from his late-father, there is a chance his place of work may be in an office instead of in a broadcast booth.
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While attending Game 7 of the 2019 Stanley Cup Final with some of his friends, Sean McDonough looked across TD Garden and found Mike “Doc” Emrick. That night, unbeknownst to many people, Emrick would be broadcasting his penultimate Stanley Cup Final series, and his last containing a sellout crowd due to the forthcoming global pandemic.
McDonough had not broadcast a hockey game in 15 years and never was behind the mic for the dynamic, heart-pounding action of the Stanley Cup Final he had fervently watched in his youth. In fact, he still has a poster of Boston Bruins forward Bobby Orr flying in mid-air to score the series-winning goal in 1970, an image firmly rooted in the subconscious of hockey fans everywhere.
During the game, McDonough remembers turning to his friends and saying, “Wow, it would be so awesome to have a chance to call this on national TV.” Three years later, McDonough was the anchor of the first Stanley Cup Final broadcast on ABC/ESPN since 2004, bringing fans the six-game series between the Tampa Bay Lightning and Colorado Avalanche, the latter of whom went on to win the championship.
“Everybody around the world who broadcasts hockey, no matter what level it is, would love to call the Stanley Cup Final,” McDonough said. “That I have the chance to do it is an opportunity for which I am incredibly grateful and feel enormously blessed.”
As part of its new seven-year media rights agreement, The Walt Disney Company (ABC/ESPN) and Turner Sports (TNT/TBS) will alternate broadcasts of the Stanley Cup Final annually, meaning it will be Turner Sports lead hockey play-by-play announcer Kenny Albert, rather than McDonough, on this year’s call.
Nonetheless, McDonough will surely watch the finals from afar and its presentation by Turner Sports while thinking about how he and his team at ESPN will look to improve in their broadcasts for the following season.
“I hope they have a great Stanley Cup Final this year and I think they feel the same for us,” McDonough said of Turner Sports. “‘The better it is for one of us, the better it is for all of us’ is the way I look at it. They… do a good job, so I think that part of the relationship is certainly friendly.”
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Growing up in the Boston area, McDonough would often accompany his father, Will, to games and sat with radio announcers in the booth during the matchup since he was not permitted to remain in the press box. As a sportswriter for The Boston Globe, Will McDonough covered multiple sports rather than specializing in one, and influenced the mindset of his son who aspired to be a sportswriter as well.
Will McDonough passed away suddenly in 2003 at the age of 67 due to what was later discovered in an autopsy to be cardiac amyloidosis. Earlier on the morning of his death, he had undergone a stress test that came back clean, and his death bewildered his family and doctors alike. In order to effectuate awareness of the disease and raise money in the quest for treatments and a cure, Sean McDonough holds an annual celebrity golf tournament.
“It’s a passion thing for me; it’s a way to honor my dad, follow his example and hopefully help these doctors,” McDonough said. “They’re already making progress; the treatments are better than they used to be [and] they’re extending lives. Now the challenge is to cure it completely, because really right now the only way over time you can beat it is with a heart transplant.”
Over the last five years, McDonough’s event has raised $1.8 million, attracting attendees from the worlds of sports and entertainment including Charles Barkley, Geno Auriemma and Bill Murray. Proceeds are given to Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, M.A., whose research team is at the forefront of innovation in the space.
“It’s more important than the broadcasting stuff,” McDonough added. “When you meet the patient whose lives you’re trying to save and you meet their families who are extremely grateful for the time and effort that everybody puts in to do this, it’s worth every second that you spend doing it – and we’re going to keep doing it until they find a cure. It’s a labor of love.”
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Four years after his graduating from college, McDonough was a finalist to land his dream job as television voice of the Boston Red Sox. He knew these jobs did not often become available, evinced by the longevity of the previous broadcast team of Ken Coleman, Ned Martin and Johnny Pesky, making the process exciting while realizing that he may never have another shot to get to that point.
Dan Berkery, who was the general manager of WSBK-TV, the channel that broadcast Red Sox games, had hired McDonough three years earlier in 1985 as a studio host for its Bruins telecasts. Recognizing his experience in broadcasting baseball and television, he took a chance on McDonough, a 25-year-old, naming him the play-by-play announcer for his childhood team.
“Opening Day 1988 – We’re at Fenway Park and I knew obviously a few months before that I had been hired to do the job,” McDonough recalled. “It wasn’t really until I sat in the booth, sat in the chair and looked out… at the field and thought, ‘Holy moly, I’m really doing this. This is my job; I am living my dream.’”
For the next 17 seasons, McDonough provided the soundtrack to Red Sox baseball and had the chance to follow the team that broke the infamous 86-year championship drought in 2004. After a 15-year absence, McDonough returned to the Red Sox in 2019 to call select games on WEEI, its flagship radio station.
“On radio as the broadcaster, you’re really in charge of everything,” McDonough said. “You can talk about whatever you want to talk about in whatever order you want to talk about [and] describe it however you want, whereas on TV, you are interacting with the producer and director about what’s coming up on the screen. For a lot of TV, you’re putting captions on pictures.”
McDonough also began broadcasting baseball nationally for CBS Sports as part of its lead broadcast team, including calling the 1992 World Series at 30 years old, making him, at the time, the youngest broadcaster to ever call a World Series game. It was also during that postseason when McDonough articulated the walk-off hit by Atlanta Braves catcher/first baseman Francisco Cabrera, sending the team to its second-consecutive World Series.
The team was defeated by the Toronto Blue Jays, who ended up winning the championship the next year as well when outfielder Joe Carter hit a walk-off home run, just the second World Series to end in that fashion. McDonough was on the call for that as well in a clip that remains a classic for baseball fans reliving history.
Historically, McDonough has a stellar track record in the big moments, authoring the words to accompany an interminable number of game-winning hits, touchdowns or goals over his career in sports media. For him, it is all about arriving to a point where the call clearly stands out from his intonation and timbre over the preceding portions of the game. The principle of calling a big moment simply by being in the moment guides his commentary on the NHL on ESPN today.
“If you have to think, ‘Oh my gosh, Joe Carter – that ball’s going to left field and that’s going to be a home run that wins the World Series, so I’d better scream really loud,’… then you’re in the wrong business,” McDonough said. “Part of that is just going to be instinctive; you know without really thinking about it…. Your call should reflect that, and I get criticized sometimes for not being excited enough, maybe in sort of routine situations, but I’m a huge believer in ‘You have to have some place to go.’”
Since 1989, McDonough has been a part of ESPN, excluding a four-year period in the late 90s when he was working exclusively on CBS. Whether it has been as the voice of ESPN College Football on ABC; Monday Night Baseball; or hosting the PGA Championship, his versatility has lended him the chance to call 11 professional sports on the national stage.
Regardless of whether or not he is working, McDonough’s nascent enamorment towards sports keeps him going and motivated to voice indelible moments no matter where they are. The skill of transitioning between different sports, he says, is “transferable,” so long as one has an understanding of the context and that it will generally take a short time to ramp up from one to the other.
“I think as long as you understand the sports and keep up with them, most play-by-play people can do it; it’s the same skill,” McDonough added. “You’re describing what you see; hopefully, you’re providing the pertinent information at the right time.”
McDonough called college football on ABC over a 15-year span with Chris Spielman, a partner that formed the duo named as the 2015 Sports Illustrated Broadcast Team of the Year. He then exclusively moved over to commentating games for the National Football League, succeeding Mike Tirico on Monday Night Football and, in so doing, becoming just the fifth play-by-play announcer to be named to its heralded play-by-play role.
Although Monday Night Football is no longer the sole standalone broadcast entity in football like it was when McDonough was young, its eminence was underscored by the enthusiasm demonstrated by NFL players in production meetings.
While he was grateful for the chance to call these prime time games, he would always pass by a stadium television with a college football game and ponder over how he missed calling those matchups. He knew the NFL attracted large swaths of viewers and higher ratings than college football and had called NFL games on ESPN Radio for the three years preceding his promotion.
Despite this, he returned to calling college football in 2018 and still watches Monday Night Football today. Since his departure, ESPN had had Joe Tessitore and Steve Levy call games before signing Joe Buck and Troy Aikman, a broadcast duo of two decades, to contracts before the start of last season.
“There’s been a lot of transition in the Monday Night Football booth the last few years, but obviously that’s going to stop because those guys are as good as any booth there is and they’re going to be doing it for a long time,” McDonough said. “I think the booth of Monday Night Football [and] the legacy of Monday Night Football is in good hands with those two for sure, and with Lisa Salters.”
Today, McDonough calls the College Football Playoff National Championship Game on ESPN Radio, along with a semifinal game on ESPN/ABC and a game each week during the regular season. Once basketball season begins, he calls ACC Big Monday matchups and also has previously called Big Monday BIG East games as well with Jay Bilas and Bill Raferty.
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Once ESPN reacquired broadcast rights for the NHL and McDonough knew he would be the network’s lead play-by-play announcer, he initially did not have much concern returning to hockey. After all, he had called the sport previously and conjectured that he would quickly be able to immerse himself in the game as a media member.
Much to his surprise, during his first game, an opening night matchup between the Pittsburgh Penguins and the Tampa Bay Lightning, he identified the augmented pace of play and knew he would need to make changes in the way he prepares and executes a broadcast.
“If you look down at your notes and take your eyes off the ice for even a second or two, when you look back up you’re not going to know where the puck is and it might be in the net,” McDonough explained. “I had to quickly adjust to that.”
In facilitating the growth of the sport, McDonough tries to provide viewers with more than just quantifiable metrics, such as total goals scored or penalty minutes. Instead, he offers the viewers comprehensive yet succinct background information or storylines gathered through research and reporting, widening the scope of the program.
It was a salient point he made in meeting with NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman prior to last season, but one that was laborious to effectively carry out because of the sport’s rapid pace.
In order to make the adjustment, McDonough, much like a player, watched tape and found areas of his profession in which he could improve, and then implemented those notes into the next broadcast.
By actively refining both his parlance and the velocity of his speech to better fit the play on the ice, he found suitable moments in the game to infuse his own personality and information, even though it is still very much a “tough balance.” Without sacrificing goal calls or losing the ability to observe key plays or the movement of the puck, he is able to fulfill his role and catalyze further conversation with his colleagues.
“I’ve always said my philosophy is that we should add to the viewer’s enjoyment of the game and not detract from it,” McDonough said. “There’s a fine line…. Some viewers might like the background information about the players [while] other people are going to think, ‘Just call the game. I don’t care about his background. I just know that he plays for my team and I want him to score a goal.’”
In broadcasting a hockey game, the play-by-play announcer sometimes divulges their opinions known to the audience, something typically associated with the role of an analyst. McDonough is cognizant of avoiding making the broadcast about himself and duly opts to focus on conveying the story of the game at hand; however, the narrative is ameliorated through conversation and, within it, informed editorialization on the topic of discussion.
“In this day and age, you should have an opinion, but it should be fair – you shouldn’t be a bomb-tosser,” McDonough said. “….I think sometimes people say things just to be provocative; to get attention. I think it’s fine – you should have an opinion, especially if it’s a controversial situation, but it should be fair and you should explain why you have that opinion.”
The paradigmatic arrangement of a broadcast booth in the NHL involves the play-by-play announcer and analyst either sitting or standing abreast and following play. Most broadcast booths are situated high on the press level and far back from the ice, rendering a less than ideal viewing experience for professionals who need to follow a small, round object with a 3-inch diameter for 60 minutes of regulation play. Monitors, spotters and other tools help alleviate this pressure, along with resets throughout the game, but in being located far from the rink, the broadcasters are, by no fault of their own, losing a point of view.
Ray Ferraro is the lead broadcast analyst for the NHL on ESPN and expressed interest last season in giving his color commentary from between the benches. Despite it being an atypical setup, McDonough and Ferraro are able to effectively work together and refrain from interrupting the other. In this position, Ferraro is able to hear conversations taking place between players, coaches and the officials, allowing him to instantly report on the action and uncover storylines that might otherwise go unnoticed.
“When we were doing a few games at the beginning of last year together, we were jammed in [the booth] like sardines when you add a statistician or a stage manager,” McDonough said. “There’s no place to put your notes, and it was uncomfortable in a few of those places. I like the added space because I come with a lot of notes and charts; that sort of thing.”
Through repetition and familiarity, McDonough and Ferraro have engendered a natural chemistry and fully engage in the flow of the game. The broadcast also implements a third voice, reporter Emily Kaplan, who compiles news and quotes from team personnel she presents on the broadcast. Off the air, Kaplan is a print journalist, writing columns for ESPN and authoring and voicing video features for the network as well, including on its weekly studio show The Point.
“Unlike a lot of people in our business, she actually listens, and a lot of times her follow-up question is directly a byproduct of what the coach just said,” McDonough said of Kaplan. “She has great information, so that’s really her role during the game [and] we try to get to her a few times a period.”
This Saturday, McDonough, Ferraro and Kaplan will be on the call for ESPN’s first outdoor NHL game – a Metropolitan Division tilt between the Washington Capitals and Carolina Hurricanes – from Carter-Finley Stadium in Raleigh, N.C.: the home of the North Carolina State University Wolfpack. The venue has a capacity of 57,000 for the Stadium Series game – approximately 37,000 more than nearby PNC Arena, the home of the Hurricanes – and it is expected to be completely filled with all tickets sold out amid palpable excitement for the event.
“There’s going to be a lot of people coming to that event Saturday night that have never been to a hockey game and are really going for the novelty of it and the fact that it is a special event,” McDonough said. “You hope that when they’re there, they catch the hockey bug and they decide they want to come back to view more games.”
For those watching the game from afar, McDonough and the broadcast team seek to accurately portray the atmosphere and communicate the appeal of hockey. Making it easier is the utilization of state-of-the-art broadcast technology and camera feeds, including the Supercam which will be exclusively utilized on the alternate All-12 presentation on ESPN+. It is named as such because it will display all 12 players on the ice throughout the course of play.
“It used to be a harder game to watch on TV, but with the technology advances in TV, it is much easier to follow the puck and that sort of thing than it used to be years ago,” McDonough said. “It’s a great opportunity and I hope all of us who have an opportunity to capitalize on it do.”
Aside from hoping the weather cooperates, McDonough does not feel added pressure going into this game and will do his best to view it like any other hockey game, although he knows that is far from what it truly is. In essence, this event has been planned for many months with people working to ensure it runs without a hitch, and as the voice of the game, he will look to accentuate the sport.
“There’s certainly a desire to do the best possible job that you can do,” he said. “You always feel that for the viewer and for your teammates who you’re working with. I think particularly in an event like this that is unique and you know there are going to be a lot of eyeballs on it, you want to make sure that you’re at your best.”
ABC will televise the 2023 Navy Federal Credit Union NHL Stadium Series at 8 p.m. EST on Saturday, Feb. 18. For fans looking to watch the game from a unique aerial perspective, ESPN+ will televise the All-12 Alternate Presentation of the game, also beginning at 8 p.m. EST.
Sean McDonough, Ray Ferraro will be on the call on both broadcasts, and are set to be joined by reporters Emily Kaplan, Kevin Weekes and Marty Smith. Steve Levy, Mark Messier, Chris Chelios and P.K. Subban will provide studio coverage for the game, along with a Friday night matchup between the Los Angeles Kings and Anaheim Ducks at 9 p.m. EST on ESPN.
Derek Futterman is an associate editor and sports media reporter for Barrett Media. Additionally, he has worked in a broad array of roles in multimedia production – including on live game broadcasts and audiovisual platforms – and in digital content development and management. He previously interned for Paramount within Showtime Networks, wrote for the Long Island Herald and served as lead sports producer at NY2C. To get in touch, find him on X @derekfutterman.
