Brent Musburger

1939-05-25 · Portland, Oregon, USA

Brent Woody Musburger became one of sports broadcasting's most iconic voices over nearly five decades, transforming every game he called into a major event through his signature gravitas and storytelling ability that made audiences feel they were witnessing history. Born May 26, 1939 in Portland, Oregon and raised in Billings, Montana, Musburger sold programs at Billings Mustangs games as a boy and played Little League Baseball alongside future major league pitcher Dave McNally. After attending Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism and working briefly as a minor league baseball umpire in the Class-D Midwest League during the 1959 season, Musburger began his career as a sportswriter for a now-defunct Chicago American newspaper. In 1968, Musburger joined CBS, starting as a sports anchor for WBBM radio and television before CBS Sports hired him full-time in 1973. By 1975, he became the original host of The NFL Today, the groundbreaking Sunday pregame show that consistently ranked as television's highest-rated NFL studio program. His signature catchphrase "You are looking live..." became synonymous with weekend sports broadcasts, while his stylized pronunciation of "CBS" ("C.B. eeezz") created another memorable trademark. Musburger is credited with coining the phrase "March Madness" to describe the NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament while covering the Final Four. His most legendary broadcasts captured sports history at its most dramatic. On November 23, 1984, he called Doug Flutie's miraculous Hail Mary touchdown pass to Gerard Phelan that defeated defending national champion Miami 47-45 in the Orange Bowl, forever known as "Hail Flutie." In October 1995, working for ABC, Musburger delivered an electric call when Edgar Martinez's eleventh-inning walk-off double scored Ken Griffey Jr. to send Seattle Mariners to their first League Championship Series: "Mariners win it! Mariners win it!" He also provided the soundtrack to the 1988 Miami-Notre Dame showdown known as "Catholics vs. Convicts" and the triple-overtime thriller between Boston Celtics and Phoenix Suns in the 1976 NBA Finals. Fired from CBS during the 1990 Final Four, Musburger quickly joined ABC Sports and ESPN, where he called seven BCS National Championship games, succeeded Keith Jackson as Rose Bowl play-by-play announcer in 2007, and became the SEC Network's lead voice for football and basketball in 2014. He retired from ESPN in January 2017. Currently, Musburger serves as managing editor of Vegas Stats & Information Network (VSiN), hosting "My Guys in the Desert" from a custom studio at South Point Casino. He and his sons sold VSiN to DraftKings in March 2021 but repurchased it in 2024. Musburger served as Las Vegas Raiders radio voice from 2018 through 2022 and received the Pete Rozelle Radio-Television Award in 2025. Married to Arlene Clare Sander since 1963, Musburger remains active in sports media at age 86.