Brent Woody Musburger (born May 26, 1939) is an American sportscaster, lead broadcaster and managing editor at Vegas Stats and Information Network (VSiN). He retired in January 2017 from the ESPN and ABC television networks. Formerly with CBS Sports and one of the original members of their program The NFL Today, Musburger has also covered the NBA, MLB, NCAAfootball and basketball, and NASCAR and served as a studio host for games, a play-by-play man, and halftime host. He has also performed postgame wrap-up segments and covered championship trophy presentations. He is a member of the Montana Broadcaster's Association Hall of Fame.[2]
Musburger's youth included some brushes with trouble: when he was 12, he and his brother stole a car belonging to their mother's cleaning lady and took it for a joy ride. His parents sent him to the Shattuck-St. Mary's School in Faribault, Minnesota.[4] Educated at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism, he was kicked out for a year for owning and operating a car without a license.[4]
Musburger began his career as a sportswriter for the now-defunct Chicago's American newspaper, where he worked with legendary sportswriter Warren Brown. In 1968, Musburger penned a column regarding Tommie Smith and John Carlos's protest of racial injustice in the United States with a Black Power salute on the medal stand during the 1968 Summer Olympics. In it he stated "Smith and Carlos looked like a couple of black-skinned storm troopers" who were "ignoble," "juvenile," and "unimaginative." In a 1999 article in The New York Times, Musburger stated that comparing the two to the Nazis was "harsh", but he stood by his criticism of the pair's action:
Did [Smith and Carlos' action] improve anything? ... Smith and Carlos aside, I object to using the Olympic awards stand to make a political statement.[5]
According to Carlos, Musburger never apologized:
We are talking about someone who compared us to Nazis. Think about that. Here we are standing up to apartheid and to a man in Avery Brundage who delivered the Olympics to Hitler’s Germany. And here’s Musburger calling us Nazis. That got around. It followed us. It hurt us. It hurt my wife, my kids. I’ve never been able to confront him about why he did this. Every time I’ve been at a function or an event with Brent Musburger and I walk towards him, he heads the other way.[6]
In 1968, Musburger began a 22-year association with CBS, first as a sports anchor for WBBM radio and later for WBBM-TV. In the mid-1970s, Musburger moved to Los Angeles and anchored news and sports for KNXT (now KCBS-TV); there he worked alongside Connie Chung as a co-anchor on KNXT's evening newscasts from 1978 until 1980, when he joined CBS Sports full time.
CBS Sports (1973–1990)
Beginning in late 1973, Musburger was doing play-by-play for CBS Sports. He started out doing regular season National Football League games (future The NFL Today co-host Irv Cross was also doing NFL games at that time as well). Musburger was paired with Tommy Mason or Bart Starr, who provided the color commentary. A year later, Wayne Walker would be paired with Musburger in the booth.
But it was Musburger's association with The NFL Today that made him famous. During his tenure, CBS' NFL pregame show was consistently the #1 rated pregame show. One of the signatures of the program was Musburger's show-opening teases to the various games CBS would cover, along with live images from the various stadiums. Musburger's accompanying intro to each visual, "You are looking live at ..." became one of his catch phrases. In promoting the network, his voice often tailed off on the last letter of "CBS" ("C.B. eeezz"), creating another catch phrase.
Musburger made headlines when he got into a fist-fight with The NFL Today's betting analyst Jimmy "The Greek" Snyder in a Manhattan bar on October 27, 1980. However, the fist-fight incident was quickly regarded as water under the bridge as the two cheerfully appeared on The NFL Today the following week wearing boxing gloves on camera.[citation needed]
Early in 1990, CBS underwent a significant management change. During the early morning hours of April 1, 1990, Musburger was fired from CBS. His final assignment for CBS came the following evening, doing play-by-play for the 1990 NCAA men's basketball final, which was Duke versus UNLV. When the game was completed, Musburger thanked the audience and CBS Sports, and the analysts that he had worked with through the years like Billy Packer, who was standing next to him.[9]
At the time of his firing, Musburger had been set to handle play-by-play duties for CBS's television coverage of Major League Baseball later that month; he was replaced by Jack Buck[10] in that capacity. His position at The NFL Today was filled by Greg Gumbel. His position as the lead play-by-play announcer for college basketball was filled by Jim Nantz.
Musburger's college football duties for ESPN and ABC have included calling seven BCS National Championship games (2000, 2004, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, and 2014).
During the 2013 BCS National Championship Game between Alabama and Notre Dame, a camera turned to Katherine Webb, who was in the stands cheering for her boyfriend, Alabama quarterback, AJ McCarron. Musburger, impressed with Webb's beauty, remarked, "I'm telling you, you quarterbacks get all the good-looking women. What a beautiful woman. Wow!" and continued commenting in a similar fashion.[17] The next day, ESPN apologized for his comments, saying they "went too far".[18] The controversy died down quickly afterwards, largely due to Webb stating that she was not bothered at all by Musburger's comments.
On March 12, 2014, ESPN named Musburger and Jesse Palmer as the lead game commentators for college football coverage on the SEC Network, ending his involvement with Saturday Night Football.[19] Also, this meant Musburger would not be participating in calling the College Football Playoff championship.
During the 2017 Sugar Bowl, Musburger drew criticism for complimentary statements about Oklahoma running back Joe Mixon, a player who had been involved in an assault with a woman; the criticism included numerous members of the sports media.[24] During the second half of the same broadcast, he angrily defended his position and derided people on social media who criticized him.[25][26]
ESPN/ABC departure and retirement from play-by-play
On January 25, 2017, Musburger announced that he would retire from play-by-play broadcasting[27][28][29] and would call his final game at Rupp Arena in Lexington, Kentucky, on January 31, 2017. [30]
Musburger stated he plans to help his family get a sports handicapping business started in Las Vegas, have a sports gambling show on Sirius XM Radio, and enjoy personal travel.[30][31] The new venture, Vegas Sports Information Network (VSiN) is the first multichannel network dedicated to sports gambling information and is broadcast from a custom-built studio at the South Point Hotel, Casino & Spa.[32][33] The network officially launched February 27, 2017. Musburger hosted a special early premiere episode of his new show on February 5 before Super Bowl LI.[34]
Vegas Stats & Information Network
Musburger now resides in Las Vegas, Nevada, where he is the face of the Vegas Stats & Information Network. VSiN (pronounced VEE-sin) broadcasts from inside the South Point Hotel & Casino sports book. Musburger's show My Guys in the Desert broadcasts on Mondays, Thursdays & Fridays from 6 p.m. ET - 8 p.m. ET & weekends from 3 p.m. ET - 5 p.m. ET on SiriusXM and the network's website VSiN.com, with Ron Flatter serving as his co-host.
Oakland/Las Vegas Raiders
On July 17, 2018, it was reported that Musburger would be making his return to the broadcast booth, this time as the new radio voice for the Oakland Raiders[35], succeeding Greg Papa[36]. Musburger is expected to continue on with the Raiders upon their impeding move to Las Vegas in 2020.
Style
Musburger has a down-to-earth manner of speaking, often addressing his viewers as "folks." In a Sports Illustrated profile done on Musburger in January 1984, he stressed his hesitance to "pontificate" during his broadcasts. CNN Sports Illustrated's Stewart Mandel selected him as the second-best college football announcer, behind Ron Franklin. Mandel said of Musburger, "His voice will always be associated with some of the sport's most memorable, modern moments."[37]
Musburger was a reporter in Rocky II and had his role immortalized in a 1979 action figure. [41]He also plays the fictional monster "Scuzzlebutt"s right leg on an episode of South Park.[42] He also made cameo appearances in The Main Event and The Waterboy. In Cars 2 and Planes, he played Brent Mustangburger, a fictionalized version of himself. He appeared as himself in the episode "Lying Around" on the ABC sitcom Happy Endings.[43]
