Longtime play-by-play announcer Al Michaels recently completed his third season calling Thursday Night Football games for Amazon’s Prime Video, and the award-winning broadcaster is reportedly expected to return on a year-by-year basis in the future. Michaels has had a legendary career in the business, calling six Super Bowl championship games and eight World Series throughout his time across ABC Sports and NBC Sports. As the only sportscaster to call the championship series of all four major professional sports leagues, he is widely reputed as one of the best to ever occupy the broadcast booth, but there have been questions surrounding his potential retirement.
During a recent appearance with Dan Le Batard on South Beach Sessions, Michaels recalled that many people have implored him not to retire, a sentiment to which he replies that at some point you either retire or die. Michaels later explained that he was at a retirement dinner for New York Rangers television play-by-play announcer Sam Rosen, and they spoke about looking forward to the games and genuinely aspiring to be present at the matchups.
“If you’re excited, if you want to be there, if you look forward to the game, you can’t wait for the game to start,” Michaels said. “As long as that is there in my fiber, I’ll keep on going.”
Michaels safeguards against complacency by showing up to every broadcast prepared, and he is also able to utilize his decades of experience and institutional knowledge to thrive in unexpected situations. Even though he knows he will not ruin his reputation in one night unless he does something “horrifically unbelievable,” he thinks of every game as an audition and surmises that he needs to be better than ever. Michaels expounded that this was still the case because he owes it to the audience to bring his best and is trying to pitch a proverbial perfect game, but he has been unsuccessful in his attempts.
“I think I’ve come close a few times, but there’s always something,” Michaels said. “No matter what it is, I’ll think about something. ‘Aah, how did I miss that,’ and I should have, could have, might have. So no, there’s no game – to pitch a perfect game over three hours on national television is almost impossible, but at least you try to come as close as you can.”
Reflecting on the potential of a farewell tour, Michaels drew a distinction between national and local broadcasters, articulating how the latter is more connected to a specific team than the former. Since Michaels has been on the air calling games across the country amid consumers with varied rooting interests, he contended that there is not really a “home base” and instead believes that he will thank everyone and bid them goodbye upon signing off. Le Batard averred that he had not considered the distinction, but he also added how broadcasters were taught not to be the story itself, but rather accent such for the consumers.
“That’s exactly right, Dan,” Michaels replied. “Yeah, I think when you make yourself the story, you’re doing a disservice to the business, so I don’t want to be the story. I want to be the narrator or the connection or the conduit or whatever, but the story, no.”
Le Batard proceeded to ask Michaels his thoughts on the sports media business and how some media members become part of stories with the notion that attention is the new currency. Michaels clarified by explaining that most of these occurrences emanate from shoulder programming on talk shows and that it would be more difficult for a play-by-play announcer to enter that realm. When Michaels is broadcasting, he considers the game to be the most important thing and largely utilizes other forums for people to get to know him and expound on different matters.
“Now it’s a completely different animal to go on a show, First Take or whatever you have, and argue with each other and have contentiousness and all of that,” Michaels said. “That’s a different animal. When you’re doing play-by-play, you don’t have time to get involved in these discussions and dialogue. You don’t.”
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