Cris Collinsworth and Marcus Mariota Credit: © Peter Casey-Imagn Images / NBC
By Sam Neumann on

If you were watching Sunday Night Football, you may have learned that Marcus Mariota’s name is actually pronounced “Mah-ree-OH-tah” with an emphasized final syllable. Or at least that’s how Cris Collinsworth said it all game long.

Collinsworth leaned hard into the pronunciation during the Commanders-Broncos broadcast, while Tirico alternated between the old and new versions. To be fair, this is how Mariota says his name is pronounced. He indicated as much during his Sunday Night Football player intro, introducing himself with the final syllable emphasized. But for better or worse, once a name is said a certain way for years, it sticks.

There’s no clear explanation for why NBC made the change now. Maybe they asked Mariota about it during their production meeting. Maybe someone in the truck decided this was the week to get it right. Either way, after a decade of hearing “MARY-oh-tah,” the sudden shift to “Mah-ree-OH-tah” caught viewers off guard.

The pronunciation has been debated since Mariota’s Oregon days. Back in 2015, ESPN clarified the proper way to say his name. According to linguistics expert Marian Macchi, English speakers naturally mispronounce it because of a linguistic rule where “ari” followed by a vowel typically sounds like “Mary.” That’s why so many have been saying “MARY-oh-tah” instead of “MAR-ee-OH-tah” for years.

But what’s technically correct doesn’t always win out in sports media.

Collinsworth’s emphatic pronunciation stood out so much that it became the story of the night. Mina Kimes joked she found herself rooting for a Commanders touchdown just to hear Cris yell Mariota’s name with the flourish. Jamie Erdahl admitted she’d heard Collinsworth say it so many times she was starting to believe that’s the right way.

But others thought it was a bit over the top.

While others made the same Hermione Granger joke from Harry Potter, referencing the scene where she corrects Ron Weasley’s pronunciation of “Leviosa” by saying, “It’s Levi-O-sa, not Levio-SA.”

What doesn’t add up here is that Mariota appeared on NBC earlier this season — albeit in an injury relief role — against the Seahawks, and his name’s pronunciation wasn’t remotely controversial then. So something changed between broadcasts, likely a renewed commitment to saying players’ names exactly as they prefer.

That’s admirable in theory, but in practice, it creates confusion when millions of viewers have heard something one way for years, and suddenly announcers switch mid-career. Mariota has been in the NFL since 2015, starting 100 games across multiple teams, so the pronunciation ship may have already sailed, regardless of what’s technically accurate.

That said, some sort of acknowledgment from the booth — “We’ve been saying this wrong for years, here’s how Marcus actually says his name” — would’ve gone a long way. At the end of the day, getting players’ names right matters, even if it takes some getting used to for our ears.

About Sam Neumann

Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.

View all posts by Sam Neumann