Greg Gumbel (born May 3, 1946) is an American

television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...

sportscaster. He is best known for his various assignments for

CBS Sports CBS Sports is the sports division of the American television network CBS. Its headquarters are in the CBS Building on W 52nd Street in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, with programs produced out of Studio 43 at the CBS Broadcast Center on W ...

(most notably, the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the majo ...

and

NCAA The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges ...

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

). The older brother of news and sportscaster Bryant Gumbel, he became the first

African-American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ensl ...

announcer to call

play-by-play In sports broadcasting, a sports commentator (also known as sports announcer or sportscaster) provides a real-time commentary of a game or event, usually during a live broadcast, traditionally delivered in the historical present tense. Radio was ...

of a major sports championship in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

when he announced Super Bowl XXXV for the CBS network in 2001. Gumbel is currently a play-by-play broadcaster for the ''

NFL on CBS The ''NFL on CBS'' is the branding used for broadcasts of National Football League (NFL) games that are produced by CBS Sports, the sports division of the CBS television network in the United States. The network has aired NFL game telecasts si ...

'' as well as the studio host for CBS' men's college basketball coverage.

Biography

Early years

Gumbel was born in

New Orleans, Louisiana New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans

, the first child of parents Richard Gumbel, a judge, and Rhea Alice LeCesne. As a young man, Gumbel grew up on

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

's South Side, where he was raised

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

, attending and graduating from De La Salle Institute. Before becoming a broadcaster, Gumbel graduated with a B.A. degree in English from Loras College in Dubuque, Iowa where he also played on the baseball team. He also has two sisters, Renee Gumbel-Farrahi and Rhonda Gumbel-Thomas.

Career

In 1973, Greg's brother Bryant, then working as a television sportscaster at

KNBC KNBC (channel 4) is a television station in Los Angeles, California, United States, serving as the West Coast flagship of the NBC network. It is owned and operated by the network's NBC Owned Television Stations division alongside Corona- ...

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world ...

, informed him that another NBC owned and operated station,

WMAQ-TV WMAQ-TV (channel 5) is a television station in Chicago, Illinois, United States, airing programming from the NBC network. It is owned and operated by the network's NBC Owned Television Stations division alongside Telemundo outlet WSNS-TV (c ...

in Chicago, was auditioning for a sports announcer. At the time, Greg was selling hospital supplies in

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at t ...

. He ultimately got the job, returned to Chicago and worked at WMAQ-TV for seven years. The sportscaster he replaced, Dennis Swanson, went on to become president of ABC Sports. Prior to his rising to prominence at CBS, Gumbel worked for MSG,

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The ...

, and WFAN radio in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. At

, he anchored the show ''

SportsCenter ''SportsCenter'' (SC) is a daily sports news television program that serves as the flagship program and brand of American cable and satellite television network ESPN. The show covers various sports teams and athletes from around the world and o ...

'' and did "

" for early NBA games. On MSG, Gumbel served as a backup announcer for Marv Albert on

New York Knicks The New York Knickerbockers, shortened and more commonly referred to as the New York Knicks, are an American professional basketball team based in the New York City borough of Manhattan. The Knicks compete in the National Basketball Associat ...

broadcasts as well as providing coverage for college basketball. When MSG signed a huge contract to broadcast

New York Yankees The New York Yankees are an American professional baseball team based in the New York City borough of the Bronx. The Yankees compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) East division. They are one ...

games in 1989, Gumbel served as host of the pregame and postgame shows. In addition to his MSG duties, he was the host of the first radio morning show on radio station WFAN. However, station management replaced him with WNBC Radio personality Don Imus once WFAN took over WNBC's AM 660 frequency.

First CBS stint

Gumbel's CBS career began with part-time work as an NFL announcer in 1988. Also in 1989, Gumbel began announcing

college basketball In United States colleges, top-tier basketball is governed by collegiate athletic bodies including National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), the United States Collegiate Athleti ...

as well. He became host of '' The NFL Today'' (alongside Terry Bradshaw) for the

1990 File:1990 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1990 FIFA World Cup is played in Italy; The Human Genome Project is launched; Voyager I takes the famous Pale Blue Dot image- speaking on the fragility of humanity on Earth, astrophysicis ...

to 1993 seasons. He also anchored CBS' coverage of

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (A ...

college football College football (french: Football universitaire) refers to gridiron football played by teams of student athletes. It was through college football play that American football in the United States, American football rules first gained populari ...

, and, in 1999, CBS' coverage for the

Daytona 500 The Daytona 500 is a NASCAR Cup Series motor race held annually at Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Florida. It is the first of two Cup races held every year at Daytona, the second being the Coke Zero Sugar 400, and one of thre ...

. Besides his hosting duties, Gumbel provided play-by-play for the NBA (alongside

Quinn Buckner William Quinn Buckner (born August 20, 1954) is an American former professional basketball player and coach. He played collegiate basketball for the Indiana University Hoosiers, and won a national championship in 1976. He was a captain of both ...

including the 1993 American League Championship Series (alongside Jim Kaat), and College World Series baseball. He was the

prime time Prime time or the peak time is the block of broadcast programming taking place during the middle of the evening for a television show. It is mostly targeted towards adults (and sometimes families). It is used by the major television networks to ...

anchor for the

1994 Winter Olympic Games The 1994 Winter Olympics, officially known as the XVII Olympic Winter Games ( no, De 17. olympiske vinterleker; nn, Dei 17. olympiske vinterleikane) and commonly known as Lillehammer '94, was an international winter multi-sport event held fro ...

from Lillehammer, Norway and co-anchor for the weekday morning broadcasts of the 1992 Winter Olympics from Albertville, France.

NBC Sports

Gumbel moved to NBC in 1994 following CBS' losses of the NFL and Major League Baseball broadcasting contracts (Gumbel's last on-air assignment for CBS was providing play-by-play for the College World Series). While at NBC, Gumbel hosted NBC's coverage of the 1994 Major League Baseball All-Star Game. He also did play-by-play for the 1995 Major League Baseball National League Division Series and National League Championship Series (on both occasions, teaming with Joe Morgan), did play-by-play for ''

The NBA on NBC The ''NBA on NBC'' is the branding used for presentations of National Basketball Association (NBA) games produced by the NBC television network in the United States. NBC held broadcast rights from 1955 to 1962 and again from 1990 (when it obtai ...

'', hosted NBC's daytime coverage of the

1996 Summer Olympics The 1996 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXVI Olympiad, also known as Atlanta 1996 and commonly referred to as the Centennial Olympic Games) were an international multi-sport event held from July 19 to August 4, 1996, in Atlanta, ...

from

Atlanta, Georgia Atlanta ( ) is the capital city, capital and List of municipalities in Georgia (U.S. state), most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. It is the county seat, seat of Fulton County, Georgia, Fulton County, the mos ...

, hosted the 1995 World Championships of Figure Skating, and served as the studio host for '' The NFL on NBC''.

Current CBS career

Gumbel left NBC after the network broadcast of

Super Bowl XXXII Super Bowl XXXII was an American football game played between the National Football Conference (NFC) champion Green Bay Packers (who were defending their Super Bowl XXXI championship) and the American Football Conference (AFC) champion Denver ...

to return to CBS. His first major assignment was to serve as studio host for the network's coverage of college basketball, including the NCAA men's basketball tournament, something he continues to do to this day. As CBS had just acquired the rights to NBC's previous NFL package, Gumbel joined the broadcast team as the lead announcer with fellow NBC alumnus Phil Simms as his color man. Gumbel was the lead announcer for the ''

'' between 1998 and

2003 File:2003 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The crew of STS-107 perished when the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated during reentry into Earth's atmosphere; SARS became an epidemic in China, and was a precursor to SARS-CoV-2; A ...

, calling Super Bowls XXXV and XXXVIII. For the

2004 NFL season The 2004 NFL season was the 85th regular season of the National Football League. With New England as the defending league champions, regular season play was held from September 9, 2004 to January 2, 2005. Hurricanes forced the rescheduling o ...

, Gumbel traded positions with

Jim Nantz James William Nantz III (born May 17, 1959) is an American sportscaster who has worked on telecasts of the National Football League (NFL), NCAA Division I men's basketball, the NBA and the PGA Tour for CBS Sports since the 1980s. He has ancho ...

as host of ''The NFL Today'' with Nantz taking over as lead announcer. At the end of the

2005 NFL season The 2005 NFL season was the 86th regular season of the National Football League. Regular season play was held from September 8, 2005 to January 1, 2006. The regular season also saw the first ever regular season game played outside the United ...

, Gumbel was replaced as studio host of ''The NFL Today'' by

James Brown James Joseph Brown (May 3, 1933 – December 25, 2006) was an American singer, dancer, musician, record producer and bandleader. The central progenitor of funk music and a major figure of 20th century music, he is often referred to by the hono ...

. Gumbel returned to the broadcast booth as the #2 play-by-play man, replacing

Dick Enberg Richard Alan Enberg (January 9, 1935 – December 21, 2017) was an American sportscaster. Over the course of an approximately 60-year career, he provided play-by-play of various sports for several radio and television networks, including ...

, alongside color man Dan Dierdorf until Dierdorf retired after the 2013–14 NFL season. Gumbel also worked alongside Trent Green in the #3 team from

2014 File:2014 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Stocking up supplies and personal protective equipment (PPE) for the Western African Ebola virus epidemic; Citizens examining the ruins after the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapping; Bundles of wa ...

until 2019. He worked in a three-man booth with Green and

Bruce Arians Bruce Charles Arians (born October 3, 1952) is an American football executive and former coach in the National Football League (NFL). Since 2022, he has been a senior football consultant for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Arians was previously the h ...

for the

2018 NFL season The 2018 NFL season was the 99th season of the National Football League (NFL) and the 53rd of the Super Bowl era. The season began on September 6, 2018, with the NFL Kickoff Game with defending Super Bowl LII champion Philadelphia defeating ...

. Gumbel then traded spots with Kevin Harlan in 2020, teaming with

Rich Gannon Richard Joseph Gannon (born December 20, 1965) is an American former football quarterback who played 18 seasons in the National Football League (NFL). Subsequently, he was a sports commentator with CBS Sports for 16 years. Gannon was born in ...

Adam Archuleta Adam Jason Archuleta (born November 27, 1977) is a former professional American football safety who played in the National Football League (NFL) for seven seasons. He played college football at Arizona State, and was selected in the first round ...

became Gumbel's partner in the #4 slot the following year after CBS declined to renew Gannon's contract.

Personal life

Greg, his wife Marcy, and Greg's married daughter Michelle all reside in the

Fort Lauderdale A fortification is a military construction or building designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is also used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from Latin ''fortis'' ("strong") and ''facer ...

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and ...

area.

Politics

In 1999, Gumbel refused to attend a

NASCAR The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, LLC (NASCAR) is an American auto racing sanctioning and operating company that is best known for stock car racing. The privately owned company was founded by Bill France Sr. in 1948, and ...

banquet honoring Supreme Court Justice

Clarence Thomas Clarence Thomas (born June 23, 1948) is an American jurist who serves as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He was nominated by President George H. W. Bush to succeed Thurgood Marshall and has served since 1 ...

, on the basis that he disagreed with Thomas' positions on political issues. He has regularly appeared on Howard Stern's radio show. Along similar lines, Gumbel said of Rush Limbaugh, "I find him someone whose words and opinions I can do without."

Legacy

Gumbel is the third man to serve as both host and play-by-play announcer for Super Bowls (the first two were

and

Al Michaels Alan Richard Michaels (born November 12, 1944) is an American television sportscaster currently working as the play-by-play announcer for '' Thursday Night Football'' on Prime Video and in an emeritus role for NBC Sports. He has worked on n ...

respectively). He hosted Super Bowls XXVI,

XXX XXX may refer to: Codes and symbols * 30 (number), Roman numeral XXX * XXX, designating pornography ** XXX, an X rating ** .xxx, an internet top-level domain intended for pornographic sites * XXX, a symbol of the straight edge lifestyle * XXX, t ...

, and XXXII before calling Super Bowls XXXV and XXXVIII. Jim Nantz became the fourth man to do so after he called

Super Bowl XLI Super Bowl XLI was an American football game played between the American Football Conference (AFC) champion Indianapolis Colts and the National Football Conference (NFC) champion Chicago Bears to decide the National Football League (NFL) champio ...

for CBS. During his tenure as the chief anchor of ''The NFL Today'', he served alongside co-anchors

Dan Marino Daniel Constantine Marino Jr. (born September 15, 1961) is an American former football quarterback who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 17 seasons with the Miami Dolphins. After a successful college career at Pittsburgh and b ...

, Shannon Sharpe, and Boomer Esiason. The group was known to call him by his nickname "Gumby".

Career timeline

*1979–1988:

– Reporter, Anchor, Play-by-play *1989:

MSG Network The MSG Network (MSG) is an American regional cable and satellite television network, and radio service owned by MSG Entertainment, Inc.—a spin-off of the main Madison Square Garden Company operation (itself a spin-off of local cable prov ...

– Play-by-play *1989–1994: ''

College Basketball on CBS ''College Basketball on CBS Sports'' (usually referred to on-air as the ''Road to the Final Four'') is the branding used for broadcasts of men's NCAA Division I basketball games that are produced by CBS Sports, for CBS, CBSSN, and Facebook. ...

'' – Play-by-play *1990–1993; 2004–2005: '' The NFL Today'' – Studio host *1991:

Seattle Mariners The Seattle Mariners are an American professional baseball team based in Seattle. They compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) West division. The team joined the American League as an expansion ...

Television – Play-by-play *1992–1993:

Cleveland Cavaliers The Cleveland Cavaliers (often referred to as the Cavs) are an American professional basketball team based in Cleveland. The Cavaliers compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Eastern Conference Central ...

Television – Play-by-Play *1992: Winter Olympics – Weekend morning host *1994: Winter Olympics – Primetime host *1994:

Major League Baseball All-Star Game The Major League Baseball All-Star Game, also known as the "Midsummer Classic", is an annual professional baseball game sanctioned by Major League Baseball (MLB) and contested between the all-stars from the American League (AL) and Nationa ...

– Host *1994–1995: ''

MLB on NBC ''Major League Baseball on NBC'' is the de facto branding for weekly broadcasts of Major League Baseball (MLB) games that are produced by NBC Sports, and televised on the NBC television network; and, as of 2022, as well as on its co-owned stre ...

'' – #2 Play-by-play *1994–1998: ''

NFL on NBC The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ma ...

'' – Studio host *1994–1998: '' NBA on NBC'' – #2 Play-by-play *1995:

World Figure Skating Championships The World Figure Skating Championships (''"Worlds"'') is an annual figure skating competition sanctioned by the International Skating Union. Medals are awarded in the categories of men's singles, women's singles, pair skating, and ice dance. ...

– Host *1998–2004: ''

'' – Lead play-by-play *1998–present: ''

'' – Studio host *1990–1994; 2000–2002: '' College World Series on CBS'' – Play-by-play *2006–present: ''

'' – Play-by-play (2006–2013: #2, 2014-19: #3, 2020–present: #4)

External links

CBS Sports Team – CBS SportsLine.com
*

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gumbel, Greg 1946 births Living people African-American sports journalists American people of German-Jewish descent American sports journalists American television sports announcers American sports radio personalities College basketball announcers in the United States College football announcers De La Salle Institute alumni Figure skating commentators Loras College alumni Major League Baseball broadcasters Motorsport announcers National Football League announcers Television anchors from New York City New York Giants announcers New York Knicks announcers New York Yankees announcers Olympic Games broadcasters Seattle Mariners announcers Sportspeople from Chicago Sportspeople from New Orleans Sportspeople from Orlando, Florida African-American Catholics 21st-century African-American people 20th-century African-American people