The candidates are play-by-play announcers, not analysts. That means John Madden, Howard Cosell, Tony Kubek, Charles Barkley, Dick Vitale and others are ineligible.
Who's the best? Really, there's only one person who knows: Me.
My criteria is simple: These are the best announcers of the modern era (by which I mean since TV became the way most Americans consume sports, so I don't include iconic figures like Mel Allen). This is based on national impact, so local announcers don't qualify unless they're also on a network (Vin Scully was brilliant, but he's most famous for Dodgers broadcasts). Longevity matters. Doing multiple sports matters.
I know you want to get to the list to see if I actually picked Joe Buck, so let's go. The top 10:
10. Brent Musburger. Most famous as the host of NFL Today on CBS, Musburger was the play-by-play voice of the NBA and the Final Four, as well as baseball. Fired by CBS in 1990, he announced college football on ABC and ESPN for 27 more years, along with a variety of other assignments. He ended his career as a gambling tout in Las Vegas.
9. Dick Enberg. The poor man's Vin Scully, Enberg was NBC's lead NFL announcer for most of his 25 years with the network, calling eight Super Bowls. He was also the network's voice of college basketball, paired with Al McGuire and Billy Packer, while also broadcasting baseball and tennis on the network. Later, he worked at CBS and ESPN, where he focused on tennis but did other sports, too.
8. Pat Sumerall. An NFL star who worked his way into being an NFL play-by-play announcer, most famously as the droll sidekick to John Madden on CBS and Fox. Summerall broadcast a record 16 Super Bowls (plus 10 more on radio), but he was also CBS's lead tennis announcer (21 U.S. Opens) and a key contributor on the network's golf coverage (calling 26 Masters). He and Frank Gifford are the greatest former athletes to become play-by-play announcers.
7. Keith Jackson. Late in his career, he was most famous for his college football broadcasts and charming phrases "The big uglies are really puttin' it on 'em today!", but he was the voice of the NBA on ABC for two years, was part of the initial Monday Night Football team, broadcast baseball for 10 years and was a key member of the "Wide World of Sports" team. Whether it was a mid-November college football showdown, the Dodgers-Phillies playoff games of the 1970s or cliff divers in Acapulco, Jackson always delivered.
6. Curt Gowdy. He was one of the voices of all sports during my childhood, along with Chris Schenkel. Gowdy was from Wyoming and had a dry, nasally voice, but he could announce football (both the AFL and NFL), baseball (he was a play-by-play announcer for the Boston Red Sox for 15 years and the lead announcer for 13 World Series and 16 All-Star Games) and even basketball. Gowdy announced eight Olympics and hosted "The American Sportsman," a show about hunting, fishing and other stuff (I never watched it because I was busy flipping over to watch some sort of competition, even if it were "The Superstars" or "The World's Strongest Man Competition.").
5. Jim Nantz. He's easy to forget because he's just a pleasant voice, but he's been the lead NFL announcer on CBS the past 21 years, he's synonymous with the Masters since 1989 and he was the lead announcer on the Final Four from Musburger's departure in 1990 until 2021. His friendly style ("hello, friends!") evokes Ned Flanders, but he's an elite announcer.
4. Kevin Harlan. A controversial choice in my household, as I love him while Mrs. Brad mocks him. Harlan is the Ryan Seacrest of sportscasting – a guy with more jobs than you can track: NFL games on TV, Monday Night Football radio on Westwood One, NBA on Amazon, college basketball on CBS. And it's not one game a week – during the fall and winter you can hear Harlan broadcast two or three games a week, all in different cities. He's dramatic, he's funny, he's always interesting (although to Mrs. Brad, he's too dramatic).
3. Jack Buck/Joe Buck. I'm combining the father/son duo because their careers are similar (with the caveat that Jack emerged when radio was still king, so he is more famous for that work). Joe is a polarizing figure (Giants and 49ers fans are strangely convinced he hates their teams) but has been a lead NFL voice for 24 years, was Fox's top baseball announcer for 25 years and also broadcast golf. Jack was famous as the St. Louis Cardinals baseball announcer when that really mattered, then worked for the networks broadcasting baseball and football (including a brilliant 16-year run doing "Monday Night Football" on radio with Hank Stram). You get two Bucks in one pick.
1. Al Michaels. When I was in middle school, I wanted to be Al Michaels – he was the radio voice of the Giants and that was my life goal. He was the greatest sportscaster ever then and it's still true: Michaels is a brilliant communicator who clearly identifies what's happening, rises to the level of the event and works well with others. He is best known as the voice of Monday Night Football (and later, Sunday Night Football and now Amazon football), but was ABC's lead baseball announcer in the 1980s, the voice of the NBA, called the "Miracle on Ice" hockey game ("Do you believe in miracles? Yes!"), broadcast ice skating, horse racing, golf, auto racing and boxing and was a longtime contributor to Wide World of Sports. He's been the lead voice of American sports for nearly 50 years. Little did I know at age 13 that I was listening to the greatest sportscaster ever on radio broadcasts of some terrible Giants teams.
