It doesn’t matter the sport or situation, nobody is more prepared than Mike Tirico

Like many things in life, announcing is subjective. Who you like the most as an announcer is most definitely hated by a large number of fans.  Like politics, high approval ratings are few and far between.

With that said, my favorite play-by-play announcer of this era is Mike Tirico. I think he’s incredibly smooth and consistent with his calls and generally fills the broadcast in an engaging and informative way. He’s good, but a large part of my respect and enjoyment of his work boils down to one thing: he’s a big nerd.

Check out his memorable call from Sunday night. I don’t want to even get into how Tirico called the game-deciding kick once the snap took place. Tirico’s unique abilities really shine through more in the seconds before the call itself.

Leading up to the kick, Tirico works in Aaron Rodgers’ potential retirement. But more on the nose, he goes through the backstory of Justin Tucker as the most accurate kicker in NFL history.

Then he sets the call up perfectly either way with, “but they went around the country and spoke to a lot of the kickers who were coming out and they decided Tyler Loop was made of the right stuff for moments like this. He now has a chance to win the division for the Ravens. The final play of the regular season! For the final spot in the playoffs! Tyler Loop from 44!”

The ball snaps. The kick is off. The call of the kick is perfect, standing tall on the foundation of the setup of Loop being made of the right stuff and uniquely picked as a successor to the league’s most prolific kicker and now with a moment to validate that pick.

But Ravens rookie kicker Tyler Loop missed a kick as time expired to give the Steelers the AFC North division crown.

Mike Tirico (who set this up very well) and Cris Collinsworth with the NBC call to cap off an unbelievable finish. 🏈🎙️ #NFL #SNF https://t.co/UhhSl4UwO8 pic.twitter.com/FQp7AYbFRU

— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) January 5, 2026

How many announcers know Justin Tucker is the most accurate kicker in league history? Likely some, but not all.

How many announcers would know the backstory of the Ravens’ search for his replacement that led them to Loop? Very few, I would presume.

Was this information from an interview with Ravens head coach John Harbaugh? From reading articles? Fed to him by staffers?

It’s not that Tirico had all of this in his back pocket at this moment, it’s that he always has an insanely deep arsenal of information to throw at whatever the situation is and whatever the sport is.

Weird fringe rule situation? Yes, Terry McAulay is probably the best rules analyst out there. And usually the color commentator is better at talking about a rule or replay review as a former player or coach. But Tirico seemingly knows every rule, no matter how obscure and how new. He knows it by word. He knows if it was changed recently and why it may have been changed. He knows the criteria to overturn the call on the field. He lets everyone do their part, but he knows already. Other announcers are often totally lost here and that’s simply because they don’t cozy up and refresh reading the rules book for every sport, because that’s only what a big nerd would do.

This is not anything new, or even isolated to football. I am an Ohio State fan for both football and basketball (currently mourning on both fronts) and he often called Buckeyes basketball games along side Awful Announcing’s biggest fan, Dan Dakich. This was often in between assignments calling NBA or NFL games in the same week, so you would think that his level of preparedness for these games might not be at the same level.

Wrong! Big nerd Tirico would often start telling stories and facts that I frankly have no idea how or why he would know. Things about some mid-level recruit’s high school team, and how he did against their rival, and how their head coach used to coach somewhere else. Random facts about the quality of play in the high school division.

During his time calling college basketball, I was routinely learning random facts about a team that I intensely followed and read pretty much everything about.  How and why he knew these things, I simply do not know other than he’s a nerd and that’s how he’s wired. Even after a decade off of Tirico calling the NBA, he’s returned to rave reviews, showcasing that his knowledge base doesn’t shrink just because he’s no longer calling a sport for an extended period of time.

There are a sliver of people in the industry and social media who think some of the bigger announcers are overpaid. Most of that is directed toward former players like Tom Brady and Tony Romo. They argue that if someone else called the game, would fewer people watch? Why pay 10, 15, 20 million dollars for an announcer? It doesn’t move the needle.

Someone in the industry told me that networks can sometimes charge higher rates on commercials for games that a big name calls (like a Romo or Brady), and hence the math can pencil out for those large salaries. Consider it like an extra 2% on your dinner bill for some newly named fee. Seems crazy, but sure.

But if we’re really thinking about an announcer’s ability to improve the economics of a broadcast, I’d suggest Tirico nerdiness, actually does juice the ratings a little bit. In the handful of blowouts Tirico calls every year, I believe he is able to hold audiences who might consider going to bed, changing the channel, or in my case, walking the dogs.

He essentially transforms into a podcast host, and while the game might be 38-10 with seven minutes left, he’ll start talking about what players are potentially in the last year of their contract, how the team has a new front office, their salary cap situation, etc.  This may sound mundane to many. But if you’re already watching a game and you’re getting a good conversation about things you weren’t that informed on, it’s not a bad thing to listen to, especially with blowout football on in the background. I suspect there are enough viewers like me, who stay on Tirico-called blowouts, enjoying an impromptu Football Podcast Night in America, that it does register a little bit in the ratings.

A month from now Tirico will be calling the Olympics. As always, it will be mostly athletes we’ve never heard of and know absolutely nothing about, competing in sports most of us don’t know anything about. And yet, coming back from calling the Super Bowl, Tirico will be there making it rain nuggets of information that inform viewers and elevate the broadcast. The Olympics will be better to watch, just like most things he calls, because Tirico just refuses to get complacent with his preparedness.