Mike Tirico: Storytelling is the DNA of NBC

The regular season finale between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Baltimore Ravens was an epic show, but Mike Tirico took the spectacle to another level for NBC.

Tirico and his Sunday Night Football broadcast partner, Cris Collinsworth, joined CNBC’s Alex Sherman this week to reflect on the season and look ahead toward the Super Bowl. But on the heels of an amazing regular-season finale for Tirico and Collinsworth, Sherman also asked whether they could feel their Steelers-Ravens broadcast was a hit.

While Collinsworth gave credit to the game, he also gave credit to Tirico’s preparation and ability as a storyteller, using Tyler Loop’s missed kick for Baltimore in the closing seconds as an example. Tirico had researched Loop before the game, and in the minutes leading up to the kick, he shared the rookie kicker’s backstory with the audience. Collinsworth noted that when Loop missed the kick, it wasn’t just a kicker missing another kick; it was someone the audience was now invested in missing a kick. And according to Tirico, it stems from NBC’s investment in storytelling.

“Storytelling has been a part of working in the studio and features, but Cris mentioned it earlier today and I hadn’t really thought about it this way, but he’s right. That’s kind of the DNA of our company because of the Olympics,” Tirico told Sherman. “Because the Olympics is about storytelling…and I think that is our first nature on Sunday nights. You’ve watched football all day and you’ve watched great broadcasts.”

After watching football and great broadcasts all day, NBC tries to do something a little different every Sunday night to set itself apart.

“Sunday night is a different animal,” Collinsworth added, explaining that he prepares for a broadcast by imagining a full family of kids, parents, and grandparents watching Sunday Night Football on the couch together. And for people who might not be football fans but are watching the broadcast on Sunday night, the storytelling helps keep them engaged.

“Sunday night has to be more of a show and has to be more of a story that has a beginning, middle and an end,” Collinsworth said. “And it takes great announcers to handle the job that Mike has. Al Michaels has done it for a long time. Those guys that really understand we’re sitting on the couch, we’re all just sitting around…but for Mike, his ability to hit the high notes of the broadcast, dead on…those are the magic moments of what he does and hopefully, what Sunday night does.”

Nearly everyone who watched the Steelers and Ravens Sunday night walked away from the game feeling like the broadcast, and especially Tirico, crushed it. As Tirico, the 2025 Awfulies winner for Best Play-By-Play Announcer, prepares to call his first Super Bowl for NBC next month, he is operating at peak performance, putting himself in position to be known as the best announcer in football.