Childhood & Early Life
Brent Woody Musburger was born 26 May 1939 in Portland, Oregon to Beryl Woody Ruth and Cec Musburger.
He spent his childhood in Billings, Montana along with his brother, Todd Musburger, a well-known attorney specializing in media and entertainment law.
He studied at Shattuck-St. Mary's School in Faribault, Minnesota and later attended Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism.
He served as an umpire in the Minor League Baseball during the 1950s.
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Career
Brent Musburger kick started his career in print media by working as a sports columnist at ‘Chicago American’, a newspaper which is nonfunctional now.
In 1968, Musburger entered into an association with the CBS which continued for the next 22 years. He worked as a sports director for WBBM Radio followed by WBBM TV.
He moved to Los Angeles in the 1970s to co-host evening news at KNXT-TV.
In 1973, he began doing play by play of ‘National Football League’ (NFL) games for CBS. He initially worked alongside Tommy Mason or Bart Starr who gave colour commentary and later with Wayne Walker.
In 1975, he got the opportunity to host the studio show of the NFL called the ‘NFL Today’. The show, which was regularly rated No. 1 pregame show during his tenure, catapulted him into fame.
After the success of the show, Musburger took up many other sports assignments for CBS including doing play by play for ‘US Open Tennis’ (1976-1989), ‘NCAA Football on CBS’ (1984-1989) and ‘College basketball on CBS’ (1985-1990).
He also worked as a studio host in ‘College Basketball on CBS’ (1981-1984) and ‘The Masters’ (1983-1988). He is believed to be the very first commentator to use the term ‘March Madness’ on TV for the Final Four of the ‘NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament’.
During this time, he additionally hosted ‘Belmonte Stakes’ horse race, ‘The World's Strongest Man’ contest and the CBS new year countdown special, ‘Happy New Year, America’.
He also covered the ‘Major League Baseball’ world series in 1984 for the CBS Radio Network
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In 1990, The CBS underwent a management overhaul after which he was dismissed from the American Television Network. His final job with CBS was doing play by play for the ‘NCAA Men's Basketball’ in April 1990.
Post his stint with CBS, Brent Musburger joined ABC Sports and began doing college football and basketball. With the merger of ABC Sports and ESPN, he further got an opportunity to work for the latter’s network also.
He did play by play for as many as seven ‘BCS National Championship Games’ between 2000 and 2014.
He also did commentary for college football and basketball on ABC and ESPN between 1990 –2017.
He turned studio host for ‘ESPN Monday Night Football’ (1990-1996), ‘FIFA World Cup’ (1998, 2006), ‘Indianapolis 500’ miles automobile race (2005-2012) and ‘NASCAR on ABC’ (2007). He also assumed hosting responsibilities for the golf tournament, ‘PGA Tour on ABC’ (1992-1996) and the annual men’s bicycle race, ‘Tour de France’.
He became a play by play announcer for ‘Little League World Series’ (1991-92, 1997-98, 2000-2011), ‘Baseball Night in America’ (1994-1995), ‘NBA on ESPN’ and ‘NBA on ABC’ (2002-2006), ‘Saturday Night Football’ (2006-2013) and ‘Rose Bowl’ (1993, 1997,2003, 2007-2014,2016).
For ESPN Radio, he provided play by play commentary for ‘NBA Finals’ (1996-2004) and ‘BCS National Championship Game’ (2007-2009).
In January 2017, Musburger announced his retirement from play by play broadcasting and chose to assist his family in establishing a new venture ‘Vegas Stats & Information Network (VSiN)’, a broadcasting company focussed on providing exclusive sports gambling news, data and analysis.
Presently, Musburger not only works as the managing editor of the network, but also provides his hosting expertise to its show, ‘My Guys in the Desert’.
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In 2018, he marked a return to the radio play the play announcer role by signing a 3 years contract with Oakland Raiders.
Other Works
Though Musburger is a well-known name in the world of sports, he has also appeared in few films and television series. He made cameo appearances in movies like ‘Rocky II’ (1979), ‘The Main Event’ (1979) and ‘The Waterboy’ (1998). He also made an appearance as himself in an episode of ABC’s TV series, ‘Happy Ending’.
He lent his voice to the fictionalised version of himself in the 3D computer animation films, ‘Cars 2’ (2011) and ‘Planes’ (2013), ‘Planes: Fire & Rescue’ (2014), and ‘The Lego Batman Movie’ (2017). He also turned narrator for ‘Hardwood Heavens’ (2006), a television series that gave viewers a glimpse of the most famous and storied arenas of college basketball.
Awards & Honours
In 2009, Brent Musburger was inducted into ‘Montana Broadcasters Association Hall of Fame’.
In 2011, he was inducted into ‘National Sports Media Association Hall of Fame’.
In 2011 again, Brent Musburger received National Football Foundation’s ‘Outstanding Contribution to Amateur Football’ award.
In 2016, he became a recipient of ‘Vin Scully Lifetime Achievement Award in Sports Broadcasting’.
