Brent Musburger, who served as the longtime host of The NFL Today pregame show from CBS Sports, was recently named as the recipient of the 2025 Pete Rozelle Radio-Television Award from the Pro Football Hall of Fame Musburger is going to be honored over the summer during enshrinement week, commemorating his broadcasting career that included a 17-year stint at CBS and subsequent tenure with ABC Sports and ESPN. The conversation surrounding Musburger receiving the honor was amplified two years ago at the Super Bowl when Dan Patrick and Jim Nantz both advocated on his behalf.
Patrick detailed on the Friday edition of his show that he penned a hand-written letter to the Pro Football Hall of Fame about Musburger’s candidacy for the award. A few years earlier, he had called the institution to discuss how John Facenda, the legendary voice of NFL Films, had not been named an inductee. Musburger, who appeared on the Dan Patrick Show following the announcement, thanked Patrick for his support and proceeded to detail how he discovered he had been selected through a phone call with former coach and colleague Dick Vermeil.
“I’m saying, ‘Coach, yeah this is not your cell phone. This is a different phone,’” Musburger recalled. “He said, ‘Congratulations, you’re the winner of the Pete Rozelle Award,’ and it was mind-blowing. I said, ‘Listen, Dan Patrick, Jim Nantz and you, coach, you’re the ones who put this forward, and I owe you a debt of gratitude.”
Musburger remarked how he wished Irv Cross, Phyllis George and Jimmy “The Greek” Snyder were still around to share in the honor because of how much they meant both to the program and the start of his career. Patrick added that Musburger hosting the show gave him an opportunity to dream and tangible direction for the first time in his broadcasting career. Moreover, he opined how Musburger, along with Bob Costas and Bryant Gumbel, were able to make hard jobs look easy, hence why several people want to partake in the role.
“I’m so appreciative to hear that, and so many youngsters through the years, Dan, have come up and said, ‘I really want to get into sportscasting, I love what you do,’ and I would spend some time and talk them through it, but you touch a lot of lives,” Musburger said. “I was asked yesterday, ‘Anybody ever get upset with you?,’ and I chuckled and I said, ‘Occasionally, I would get a letter, a little nasty, from a preacher somewhere who said that I was spoiling church attendance on Sunday.”
Towards the end of his interview appearance, Patrick presented a hypothetical situation asking what Musburger would say if somebody had told him in 1975 that he would be in the Hall of Fame and that gambling would be embraced by various sports. In reply, Musburger expressed that he would have surmised that they were crazy and that he never dreamed of being honored by the Pro Football Hall of Fame, not thinking about that having visited Canton to tape a segment early in his career. As it pertains to gambling, Musburger is happy that it is legal but forewarns people about the dangers of becoming addicted and the impossibility of beating the putative system.
“Think about ESPN, which did not exist when The NFL Today started — we didn’t have cable television like we have it,” Musburger said. “If you go up, I was watching last night, and like a lot of people, I was watching and the bottom line [and] there were NBA spreads and over-unders were coming under, and I always smile when I see it because that was so verboten back in the ‘70s, and now it’s just part of the culture. I think, Dan, that’s a good thing because I think it’ll just kind of be accepted and go on its own way down the road to tell you the truth.”
Barrett Media produces daily content on the music, news, and sports media industries. To stay updated, sign up for our newsletters and get the latest information delivered straight to your inbox.
