Al Michaels’ contract with NBC is up at the end of this season (ending with the Super Bowl on NBC), and that’s led to a lot of discussion about what’s next for him. There’s been quite a bit of talk about him maybe heading to Amazon for their Thursday Night Football package (Andrew Marchand and John Ourand pegged those odds as quite high on their podcast this week). That might make some sense, especially with Amazon seemingly looking to make splashy hires, and with NBC having Mike Tirico there seemingly ready to step in; Tirico has called some games for them already, and the talk when he first joined in 2016 was that he was a likely eventual internal replacement for Michaels (seen above on a NBC broadcast in 2017). However, there’s also still a chance that Michaels remains with NBC, either full-time or part-time.
One thing that’s not in dispute, though, is that the 77-year-old Michaels seems to want to keep calling games. He confirmed that Wednesday to Fred Roggin and Rodney Peete on KLAC 550 AM in Los Angeles. Here’s the key quote there, via Derek Futterman at Barrett Sports Media:
“My contract is up, but we’re still talking about the future and a couple of other things are out there. I, at this moment in time, hope to be doing games next year.”
Of course, there’s plenty of wiggle room there, and plenty that could change. But it’s certainly notable to have Michaels confirming on the record that he’s looking to keep calling games. And that news will likely be well-received by many; Michaels and analyst Cris Collinsworth regularly draw some of the best results in our reader-voted announcer rankings, placing second (behind only Jim Nantz and Tony Romo) in each of 2018, 2019, and 2020.
[iheart.com, Barrett Sports Media; photo from Joe Nicholson/USA Today Sports]
