Mike Tirico says it ‘angers’ him that fans think Joe Buck hates their favorite team

Mike Tirico doesn’t get angry often about what people say about broadcasters. He’s been doing this long enough to know that criticism comes with the job. Fans are going to complain. Social media is going to pile on. That’s just how it works.

But Joe Buck’s reputation for supposedly hating everyone’s favorite team actually angers him.

Tirico appeared on The Dan Patrick Show this week with Cris Collinsworth ahead of their call of Super Bowl LX, and the former SportsCenter anchor asked whether Tirico draws the same ire from fanbases that Collinsworth does. Tirico said no, he just lets Collinsworth take those bullets instead.

But when Patrick brought up Buck running into that same problem, Tirico’s tone changed.

“I don’t know. And it’s so wrong, too,” Tirico said. “That actually angers me because Joe’s not like that at all.”

“It angers you?”

“It does anger me,” Tirico added. “Joe’s the best.”

Collinsworth offered an explanation for why Joe Buck attracts so much heat despite being the best at what he does. Buck has a “smart-aleck streak,” according to the former Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver. He’s not afraid to crack a joke in the final 30 seconds of the Super Bowl if something comes to his head. That personality rubs some people the wrong way.

Collinsworth shared a story from production meetings during his time working with Buck and Troy Aikman. They’d sit there asking questions and breaking down the game with assistant coaches. Buck would take notes like he was back in school, very serious about the whole thing. Then the coach would leave the room, and Buck would immediately do an impersonation of the guy, mocking how stupid the questions were and doing full stand-up comedy routines.

“There’s a reason why fans catch on,” Collinsworth said.

Patrick asked whether social media brings attention to things announcers might not realize they’re saying or not saying during games. Tirico acknowledged that catching a mistake is legitimate criticism. But most of the anger is directly correlated with who loses the game.

Tirico explained what play-by-play announcers actually want from social media. You want one person saying you’re pro-Rams, and the next tweet saying you’re completely biased toward the Bears. When both fanbases think you hate them in the same game, you’ve achieved balance. That means you did your job, and you can leave happy.

Tirico has successfully avoided all of it despite calling the biggest games on television. He knows how to stay neutral, how to read a room, how to make both sides think you’re on their side.

But he’s also seen what it’s done to Joe Buck. In 2006, Buck called the World Series between the Cardinals and Tigers so terrified of sounding biased toward his hometown team that his voice went completely flat when St. Louis won. A friend on the PGA Tour — someone in the business who should know better — told Buck it was a shame they let a St. Louis guy call that series because Buck was obviously rooting for the Cardinals.

“I hear them win the 2006 World Series, and my voice is so flat and so monotone and so not excited because I’m trying to prove to everybody in Detroit, I’m not rooting for the Cardinals,” Buck said later. “Look, here’s the most boring call ever to end a World Series.”

He regrets it. He went too far trying to prove something that shouldn’t need proving. And people accused him of being a Cardinals homer anyway.

But even if Joe Buck has some regrets, he doesn’t show it.

He understands why some fans aren’t too fond of him as a broadcaster. The voice of ESPN’s Monday Night Football attributed that to calling over 24 World Series, during which he told at least half the audience that their team had just lost. Being the only voice of the baseball’s Fall Classic during the entire social media era meant absorbing decades of anger from losing fanbases who needed someone to blame.

So he gets it, but he also doesn’t give a sh*t.

Mike Tirico gives a sh*t, though. He previously praised Buck for giving broadcasters “a roadmap on how to handle the criticism that comes with social media.” He told the panel Buck taught the industry how to deal with fans who accuse you of things you don’t feel, how to navigate the reality that “there’s a direct correlation of people who are disappointed/angry with you and which team lost or which team is losing.”

And when Tirico — who has cracked the code on avoiding the hate Buck absorbs — says Buck’s reputation actually angers him, that carries more weight than any defense Buck could mount himself.