Few artists have had the impact on an entire year’s conversation that Taylor Swift had in 2023. She embarked on one of the most talked about concert tours of all time, became a key part of NFL talk and was named Time’s Person of the Year. The only thing I can say for sure Taylor did not do was cost Al Michaels his role on NBC’s coverage of the NFL Playoffs.
It’s a fun conspiracy theory, linking a comment Michaels made earlier in the year to Sports Illustrated’s Jimmy Traina to NBC’s decision, but the assertion comes with little evidence to back it up.
Networks and stations make decisions to move on from iconic talent all the time. The talent and the audience will always search for a reason. Sometimes it is as simple as “it was time for a change”. It’s not satisfying and is highly subjective, but in this business, it’s pretty common.
Plenty bemoaned NBC’s decision to move on from Michaels. Just last week, my colleague Andy Masur wrote that Michaels should get to broadcast for as long as he wants. That just isn’t the way this works.
Let me state for the record that I like Al Michaels. I think he does a fine job on Thursday Night Football. I met him at the BSM Summit in LA earlier this year and found him to be very kind. I was not rooting for NBC to fire Al Michaels and I am not celebrating that he will not call games this postseason. My opinion is rooted in market evidence.
Whether you agree or not, the public was pretty loud about Michaels’s performance alongside Tony Dungy last year in the Jacksonville Jaguars’ Wild Card Round win over the LA Chargers. Social media accused him of being too old. Some of his fellow broadcasters said he had lost his fastball. If you are a sports fan, it was a conversation that was impossible to avoid.
That criticism carried over to this year. Both Michaels and his Thursday Night Football partner Kirk Herbstreit have bitten back at the idea that Michaels is not enjoying the Amazon games.
Are the accusations fair? I guess that is in the eye of the beholder. Are they accurate? Again, there is no definitive way to answer that.
Broadcast entities, be they TV networks or radio stations, are in the business of entertaining the public. We are a reputation business. Even if the ratings don’t suffer, a perception that your product is not what it used to be or that it feels less relevant than your competition is a problem.
Think back to last year. The Jaguars won in comeback fashion. It was the franchise’s first playoff victory since 2017 and came one year after it made the second of back-to-back number-one overall picks in the NFL Draft. It was a moment that should have been celebrated beyond just North Florida.
After the game though, most people were talking about the way Michaels called the final moments and seemed disinterested in the Jaguars’ game-winning field goal. Then, Michaels defended himself by saying that the only alternative was to be “over the top”. Fair or not, it’s not unreasonable to think those comments may have helped to make NBC’s decision.
The network has already moved on from Michaels on Sunday Night Football. He will not call NBC’s next Super Bowl (LX). He may be a legend, but he was already playing second-fiddle in terms of play-by-play men at the network. If the consensus is that his talent is not what it used to be, maybe this was an easy decision for NBC.
We’ve seen this before with broadcasters. Hawk Harrelson has been very vocal about not wanting the farewell tour the Chicago White Sox gave him. We’ve seen it in sports radio. Mike Golic is a legend of ESPN Radio. He didn’t get to choose when his time was up at the network.
It’s rare that a network will do for its talent what ESPN is doing for Lee Corso on College GameDay. Surely the network and the show’s producers see the flood of tweets and think pieces each week about the 88-year-old coach’s speech and performance on the show. Nonetheless, all of the decision-makers are behind the idea that Corso isn’t done until he says he’s done.
Al Michaels has had far fewer health issues and he communicates as well as ever, so the Corso example is almost shocking. NBC isn’t ESPN though and the NFL Playoffs are not a college football pregame show. We are talking about completely different decision-makers considering vastly different stakes.
Did NBC owe Al Michaels better than what he iconic broadcaster got? I’m not sure it did. He did a job. He got paid for it. The end. Yes, he is an iconic sportscasting voice and yes, he is still capable, but time comes for us all. When time comes for someone like Al Michaels, there is no good way to tell him that you are moving on.
If it’s put on the air for the public to consume, it’s entertainment above all else. If the audience tells you they aren’t entertained anymore, you have to respond.
We’re talking about the NFL Playoffs. The presence of Al Michaels probably was never going to determine if you were going to tune in or not, but it may have shaped your opinion of NBC and how it covers the NFL. If network brass felt good about Noah Eagle and Todd Blackledge, who joined the network this year to cover Big Ten football, this was probably an easy decision.
Demetri Ravanos is a columnist and features writer for Barrett Media. He is also the creator of The Sports Podcast Festival, and a previous host on the Chewing Clock and Media Noise podcasts. He occasionally fills in on stations across the Carolinas in addition to hosting Panthers and College Football podcasts. His radio resume includes stops at WAVH and WZEW in Mobile, AL, WBPT in Birmingham, AL and WBBB, WPTK and WDNC in Raleigh, NC.
You can find him on Twitter @DemetriRavanos or reach him by email at DemetriTheGreek@gmail.com.
Personally, I think Michaels is dull.
Why don’t you get a job at Tweeners Magazine instead of writing about sports. 90% of NFL fans who watch the games on TV could care less about Taylor Shit. To even bring up her name in your sports article is a joke. Comparing Al Michaels broadcasting skills to Mike Golic or Hawk Harrelson is a joke. America does also not care about Jacksonville football, and it would have been hard for anyone to get excited about them.