the NFL’s popularity has a lot to do with the way football is produced, and Fred Gaudelli has played a large part in that. Now, he is being honored for his work as this year’s recipient of the Pete Rozelle Radio-Television Award from the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
“Pete Rozelle blazed the trail that enabled the National Football League to become America’s No. 1 entertainment entity,” Gaudelli said in a statement. “For 33 years and counting, I’ve had the privilege of contributing to that legacy by producing prime time games…. Joining former award winners – not to mention colleagues and friends including John Madden, Al Michaels, Chris Berman, Dick Ebersol, Howard Katz and Andrea Kremer – makes this honor the greatest of my career.”
Gaudelli began his producing career at ESPN on its Thursday college football package, and eventually produced the Big Monday and College World Series broadcasts for the network. In 1990, he was named the producer of Sunday Night Football on ESPN where he helped the franchise become a cable television institution. After a decade with ESPN, Gaudelli made the move to Monday Night Football on ABC – the place he first began working with legendary play-by-play announcer Al Michaels – to succeed producer Don Ohlmeyer.
When NBC Sports began broadcasting Sunday Night Football in 2006, Dick Ebersol recruited Gaudelli to produce games, during which the property won 30 Sports Emmy awards and finished as prime time television’s No. 1 show for 11 consecutive years. Gaudelli helped build the production for Amazon Prime Video’s Thursday Night Football broadcasts this past season with a commentary team of the aforementioned Michaels, Kirk Herbstreit and Kaylee Hartung.
Throughout his time in the sports media business, Gaudelli was partially responsible for a variety of technological innovations, including the implementation of Skycams, the first-and-10 yellow line and the rotating scorebox among others. He was inducted into the Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame in 2020 and has produced seven Super Bowl broadcasts over the course of his career. Additionally, Gaudelli’s colleagues have spoken of him effusively on many occasions, lauding him as one of the most skilled producers in the history of the industry.
Gaudelli recently retired from working inside the production truck and now serves as the executive producer for both NBC’s Sunday Night Football and Amazon Prime Video’s Thursday Night Football. He will be situated in the studio for Sunday Night Football games and travel to select Thursday Night Football matchups to provide on-site support. His seminal and enduring legacy will now be enshrined in Canton, Ohio next to other athletes, personnel and sports media professionals, recognized among the top of his craft. The honor is set to be bestowed upon him during the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s enshrinement week, highlighted by the enshrinement ceremony on Saturday, Aug. 5.
“The Hall of Fame presents this award annually in recognition of longtime exceptional contributions to radio and television in professional football, and no one has set a better example of that than Fred Gaudelli,” said Jim Porter, the president of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. “Millions of fans have tuned into Sunday Night Football week after week and year after year, and Fred continually took the broadcast to new heights.”
