Nearly five years after his high-profile exit from his previous role as the Reds’ television voice, Thom Brennaman is returning to a regular role on Cincinnati’s airwaves.
On Thursday, 700 WLW-AM announced that Brennaman will replace Mike McConnell as the host of the radio station’s weekday morning show. McConnell announced his retirement last month, with his final show at the station set to take place on Monday.
Come Monday, the 5-9 a.m. morning news-talk program will be hosted by Brennaman. He had followed in his father Marty Brennaman’s footsteps as the voice of Reds for Fox Sports Ohio until his unceremonious exit in 2020. That was when he was caught saying a homophobic slur while unknowingly on air, an incident that was only amplified by him interrupting his apology to somberly call a Nick Castellanos home run.
Brennaman ultimately resigned more than a month after the incident and also lost his role calling NFL games for Fox. He later reemerged to call games for the Roberto Clemente League in Puerto Rico and high school football broadcasts for Chatterbox Sports before being named a play-by-play announcer for The CW’s national college football broadcasts in 2024.
Despite the nature of his departure from the Reds, Brennaman has been open about his willingness to learn from his mistake and has received praise from multiple LGBTQ+ activists for those efforts. On one of the early episodes of his Off the Bench show in 2022, he reflected on the journey he had taken in the two years since the high-profile incident.
“All I can do is what I’ve tried to do over the past two years, that’s learn and grow from the ignorant word I used in a flippant sort of way,” he said. “And really, through my experiences and time with people in the gay community, I’ve learned a great deal. All you can do is the best you can do, and I’ve done that for two years, and I continue to learn and grow. I’m a better man today than the guy who sat up there in August of 2020; I’ll be a better broadcaster today than I was in August 2020 because of this whole experience and this whole journey.”
As for his radio gig, this appears to be a new chapter in Brennaman’s career as he shifts his focus from sports to news. Nonetheless, it’s an opportunity that’s meaningful to the Ohio University alum, who now gets a second chance to be a regular voice in the city he’s been called home for most of his life.
About Ben Axelrod
Ben Axelrod is a veteran of the sports media landscape, having most recently worked for NBC's Cleveland affiliate, WKYC. Prior to his time in Cleveland, he covered Ohio State football and the Big Ten for outlets including Cox Media Group, Bleacher Report, Scout and Rivals.