One of the new voices that you will hear as an analyst on FOX’s NFL coverage this season is former USC and eight-year NFL veteran quarterback Mark Sanchez. Sanchez will be the color commentator with Kevin Kugler (play-by-play) and Laura Okmin (sideline reporter) when their season begins with 49ers vs. Lions in Week 1.
On the latest episode of the Green Light with Chris Long podcast (52 minute mark), Sanchez was asked how about the opportunity to go from doing studio work with ESPN to now being a part of the game action for FOX. He said he was nervous, but became comfortable very quickly.
Even more interesting is that Sanchez revealed that he wasn’t exactly a broadcasting free agent when the opportunity to leave ESPN came his way. He had two years on his contract at Disney, but still auditioned for multiple networks.
“I auditioned for CBS, auditioned for FOX. Boom, negotiations started with FOX,” Sanchez told Long. “I called everybody at ESPN and said this is the direction I’m going and they were great. They wished me the best and I was very appreciative to them because I knew they had prepared me for this moment…This was the right move for me.”
To prepare for this season, Sanchez says he has been watching great color commentators past and present and trying to learn how their strengths could work within the context of his personality.
“Watching old Madden clips, watching old Gruden clips. Watching Phil Simms, Tony Romo. You pick little things that you love about each of them. At the end of the day, I got to be me. I got to have fun doing it…I’m a little self-deprecating. Hopefully I have good insight on something, but I want the game to be fun.”
The other part of preparation was that Sanchez had Kugler at his house this summer to talk about their expectations for each other and they watched a Jaguars-Jets preseason game that Kugler called with Mark Brunell in which Sanchez was playing QB for the Jets.
Sanchez knows the expectations that comes with this job and that he sometimes is going to have to call out a bad performance from a player and he hopes they don’t take it personally:
“I think there is a fine art to it. Some guys are better at it than others. At the end of the day, you really got to criticize the performance and not the person. Once you start getting into the person, that’s a little out of bounds. The other thing is I try not to take anything personally as a player. Hopefully, these guys do the same thing.”
In addition to calling NFL games, Sanchez will also be doing some studio work for FS1. It will be interesting to watch the next chapter of his career as he goes from quarterback to studio analyst to taking on a new challenge and calling games from the booth.
Ricky Keeler is a reporter for BSM with a primary focus on sports media podcasts and national personalities. He is also an active podcaster with an interest in pursuing a career in sports media. You can find him on Twitter @Rickinator555 or reach him by email at RickJKeeler@gmail.com.
These days, WPLJ in New York City is a Christian station owned by the Educational Media Foundation. When Mike Breen was a kid in Yonkers though, it was one of the most influential rock stations in America and the man who is now known as the voice of the NBA wanted to be on the air there.
On the latest edition of Dan Le Batard’s South Beach Sessionspodcast, Breen revealed that he always loved sports. His first introduction to broadcasting though came from a neighbor named Tony Minecola. He was a few years older than Breen and studying to be a radio broadcaster in college.
“He built a radio station in his basement and played disc jockey,” Breen told Le Batard. “’He had commercials, records, you know, everything. Like it was a real radio station, only it only went from one room to the next. That was what he was into, and that’s what he was going to college for. And we used to hang out in the basement all the time. And one day he says, ‘Hey, why don’t you come in? You want to you want to be the DJ for a little bit?’ And I’m like, okay, let me try it.’ And I fell in love with it.”
Mike Breen didn’t just fall in love with the idea of radio. He saw it as a viable career and knew exactly where he wanted it to take him.
“I enjoyed being on the air and talking. So my initial thought was, ‘I’m going to be a disc jockey.’ WPLJ was like the big rock station in New York back at that time, and I thought, ‘I’m going to be a DJ on WPLJ.’ That was my first goal.
Through the 70s and early 80s, WPLJ was an album rock station. Some of its most iconic on air personalities included Carol Miller, Pat St. John, Fr. Bill Ayers, and Mark Goodman, who was eventually one of MTV’s original VJs.
Breen said he loved the rock music of the time, especially Jethro Tull and Bruce Springsteen, but he realized that a broadcasting career could keep him close to sports too.
Obviously, he chose well. That is not to say that he couldn’t have been a great DJ if given the chance, but he went on to be the voice of the New York Knicks and has called more NBA Finals games than anyone else in history.
WPLJ was out of the rock business by 1983 when it became a pop station.
CBS Sports is set to premiere new episodes of its franchise Beyond Limits, which celebrates athletes who go beyond the implicit boundaries of sports and society. Three half-hour episodes will be hosted by CBS Sports reporter AJ Ross, and will also air on CBS’ linear channel and stream live on Paramount+.
The first episode of the season is titled “Who I Am,” and it will feature Byron Perkins, who is the first openly gay football player at a historically black college or university (HBCU). Perkins is a redshirt senior at Hampton University. The show will also discuss the relationship he has with his mother and how she has impacted him both as a person and an athlete.
Two more episodes will premiere throughout the season – one on making sports adaptable and accessible; and the other featuring athletes who have moved into executive roles. The latter show includes interviews with NBA Executive Vice President and Head of Basketball Operations, Joe Dumars; New Orleans Pelicans Vice President of Basketball Operations and Team Development, Swin Cash; and NFL Executive Vice President of Football Operations, Troy Vincent.
The series, which first premiered in September 2021, is produced by the CBS Sports Race and Culture Unit, with senior producer Sarah M. Kazadi. Its first episode premieres on Sunday, June 11 at 1:30 p.m. EST/10:30 a.m. PST, and should provide fans with unique storytelling and spotlight into the journeys of various key figures in sports and media alike.
Neil Everett has become one of the faces of SportsCenter. After 23 years at ESPN, he announced that he is leaving the network.
Colleagues at the World Wide Leader took to Twitter to share their thoughts. It was universal praise from the people that knew and worked with Everett. Chief among them was his SportsCenter partner of fourteen years, Stan Verrett.
I started at espn in 2000, a few months after Neil Everett. We joined up for sportscenter from LA in 2009. For 14 years, he was the best teammate I could imagine. Selfless, caring, generous, and a pro’s pro. He’s moving on now, but we are brothers for life. That’ll never change.
Everett has spent the last two years as part of the television studio crew covering the Portland Trail Blazers. He told Front Office Sportsthat he will be seeking to expand his role with the team.
If Root Sports Northwest requires references, there are plenty ESPN colleagues past and present that were immediately ready to vouch for Neil Everett.
Neil Everett doesn’t believe in Twitter. Leave positive comments here and I will share with him. Or, I will just give you his number. Great teammate, great friend, many laughing fits with him. Loves animals, WA and Hawaii. And Oregon.
Neil Everett. Nicest guy. Old school SportsCenter cool. Crazy funny. Great writer. Loves sprint car racing. 23 years of all that? Blessed to have called him a teammate. Even more to call him a friend. pic.twitter.com/vH6GntFJyX
Mahalo to Neil Everett, the best I ever co-anchored with. And an even better person. *3 months into my gig at ESPN, invited me to his home for Thanksgiving *For a few years, we both refused to say “Thunder” on TV #Sonics *bonded over music, WA & much more.#SimplyTheBestpic.twitter.com/QG1ae9AE7v
Everett was not laid off. He turned down a new contract that would have forced him to take a pay cut.
The Walt Disney Company is in the middle of layoffs effecting every division. CEO Bob Iger has tasked his leaders with reducing costs by $5.5 billion and cutting 7000 jobs.
