Brent Musburger is headed back to the NFL booth, if only for a night.
NBC Sports announced its coverage plans for Thursday’s Hall of Fame Game between the Chargers and Lions, and the legendary broadcaster will be part of the festivities in more ways than one. Musburger, the 2025 recipient of the Pete Rozelle Radio-Television Award, will be honored in a pregame interview with Maria Taylor before joining Mike Tirico and Cris Collinsworth in the broadcast booth for the second half.
Musburger, now 86, has done just about everything over the course of his five-decade career. He was the original host of The NFL Today on CBS, a halftime fixture on Monday Night Football, the voice of countless Super Bowls, and the play-by-play announcer for the Las Vegas Raiders from 2018-22. His voice is synonymous with college football, the NBA, and just about every major sporting event from the 1980s through the early 2000s.
Oh, and he’s the guy who coined the term “March Madness.”
While Musburger has largely stepped away from the national spotlight, he remains active with his Las Vegas-based betting network, VSiN, which he founded in 2017. Still, Thursday night represents a rare — and well-deserved — moment back in the mainstream.
Many in the industry pushed for Musburger to receive the Rozelle Award last year, and now that it’s official, the Pro Football Hall of Fame is giving him his flowers. He’s not one to make a big deal out of it, but NBC giving him a seat in the booth alongside Tirico and Collinsworth is the right kind of tribute.
Musburger might be back for just one night, but it’s one he earned.
About Sam Neumann
Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.