One of the most exclusive clubs in sports is that of the rare class of announcers who become the face of a network. Once you reach that pantheon, there’s no turning back, and you become a fixture for years, if not decades, in the biggest sporting events in America. And if you were watching the national championship game broadcast between Florida and Houston on Monday, there was no mistaking that Ian Eagle is now firmly entrenched in that club.
This was the second year of Ian Eagle as CBS and TNT’s lead announcer for the NCAA Tournament after Jim Nantz stepped down from his college basketball duties in 2023. And Eagle has taken the ball and run with it.
His call of the national championship game was flawless from opening tip to final buzzer, showing viewers why he has been a fan favorite for years, always meeting the moment, showing humor and joking with his teammates in the broadcast booth, and bringing excitement and energy with unique calls. It was the same story throughout the entire tournament.
Eagle had been a steady understudy of Nantz for years at CBS, usually calling regional action in the tournament alongside Jim Spanarkel. The same is true on the NFL, where he has called several playoff games as the network’s number two play-by-play voice. Next year, he will call NFL games with a new broadcast partner, J.J. Watt, who will step in for Charles Davis.
It’s a testament to his incredible skill as an announcer that no matter what sport he calls or who he is partnered with, his broadcasts always end up being highly regarded by fans. While calling the NFL, he has ranked third in 2018 when paired with Dan Fouts and ranked first in our 2022 announcer rankings alongside Charles Davis. While calling the NCAA Tournament, Eagle has ranked first with both Spanarkel and the lead crew with Grant Hill and Bill Raftery. It should be no surprise that Awful Announcing readers also named Eagle, Hill, and Raftery the best broadcast booth in all of sports earlier this month.
Ian Eagle’s work is unmatched when it comes to the quality and variety of broadcast partners across sports. If he lands a more regular NBA role with Amazon, as has been indicated, whoever he works with there will probably also soar to the top of the best broadcast teams covering the association.
While there have been popular announcers over the years who have been fan favorites, sometimes networks don’t always grant them opportunities to call championship-level games, given how tough it is to break through. Announcers don’t get to rotate into a championship assignment if they’ve had a great year on the mic.
Kevin Harlan calls the Super Bowl on Westwood One Radio but only got a lead assignment from the NBA on TNT after Marv Albert retired, and even that came to an end in the conference finals. Gus Johnson was beloved for years as the fan’s voice of March Madness but has seen his popularity fall off somewhat in recent years with his foray into soccer and college football work at Fox Sports.
Once you reach championship-level broadcasting, you tend to have the same job security as a Supreme Court justice. When you think about those announcers who have the quality, the gravitas, and the presence to be the voice for championship moments across the sports landscape, only a handful in the medium’s history have reached that status. In modern times, it’s the likes of Jim Nantz, Joe Buck, Al Michaels, and Mike Tirico.
In past generations, names like Summerall, Gowdy, Costas, McKay, Scully, Enberg, Whitaker, and Musburger were among the faces you would always see at the most significant events.
Then there are broadcast legends synonymous with a particular sport (think Doc Emrick calling the NHL, Mike Breen on the NBA, and maybe even Keith Jackson on college football). However, a very small class of individuals has called multiple championship events for one network.
Given his work calling the NCAA Tournament and the NFL, it’s hard not to project Ian Eagle as becoming the successor to Jim Nantz as the face of CBS Sports and joining that fraternity. Nantz’s future has been in the news recently with his possible long-range retirement plans from the Masters, although he has been quick to downplay it, as he doesn’t want it to become a story. But it’s not entirely out of the question to see Nantz walk away from the NFL in the years ahead to focus on the PGA Tour and see Eagle call a couple of Super Bowls at the network.
At 56 years old, maybe the Masters in 2037 might be a bit of a stretch, especially considering Ian Eagle hasn’t called golf before, but we did see Fox give Joe Buck that role when they held U.S. Open rights. Of course, by then it’ll probably be his son Noah Eagle’s turn at the top of the broadcast mountain.