Mark Followill is an American
sports announcer
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 wa ...
, currently for
Fox Sports
Fox Sports is the brand name for a number of sports channels, broadcast divisions, programming, and other media around the world.
The ''Fox Sports'' name has since been used for other sports media assets. These assets are held mainly by the F ...
, covering
basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's h ...
,
soccer and
football.
Career
Early in his career, Followill worked in various positions at
KTCK The Ticket in Dallas including as host of ''The Ender.'' He still makes regular contributions to the station. He also had a stint at
KTOK
KTOK (1000 AM) is a commercial radio station in Oklahoma City and airs a talk radio format. It is owned by iHeartMedia, Inc., and licensed as iHM Licenses, LLC. The studios and offices are in the 50 Penn Place Building on the northwest side o ...
in Oklahoma City.
Basketball
Followill is the television play-by-play voice for the
Dallas Mavericks
The Dallas Mavericks (often referred to as the Mavs) are an American professional basketball team based in Dallas. The Mavericks compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the Western Conference Southwest Division. The ...
, a position he's held since 2005. He and analyst
Derek Harper
Derek Ricardo Harper (born October 13, 1961) is an American former professional basketball player. A second-team All-American at the University of Illinois, he was the 11th overall pick of the 1983 NBA draft and spent 16 seasons as a point gua ...
won a Lone Star Emmy award in 2014 for their work on Mavericks broadcasts. Followill had previously been the radio play-by-play voice for the Mavericks on
103.3 ESPN Radio from 2001 to 2005. He won the Katie Award for Best Play-by-Play Sportscast in 2002 and the Texas
Associated Press
The Associated Press (AP) is an American non-profit news agency headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1846, it operates as a cooperative, unincorporated association. It produces news reports that are distributed to its members, U.S. n ...
Award for Best Play-by-Play Broadcast in 2004 and 2005.
Soccer
Followill is also the television play-by-play announcer for
FC Dallas
FC Dallas is an American professional soccer club based in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. The club competes as a member of the Western Conference in Major League Soccer (MLS). The franchise began play in 1996 as a charter club of the leag ...
. In 2012, he began calling FCD games except when they conflicted with his responsibilities with the Mavericks. His work with FC Dallas gained the attention of
Fox Sports
Fox Sports is the brand name for a number of sports channels, broadcast divisions, programming, and other media around the world.
The ''Fox Sports'' name has since been used for other sports media assets. These assets are held mainly by the F ...
, who named him as one of their announcers for
Copa America Centenario
Copa or COPA may refer to:
COPA
COPA may refer to:
* Computer Operator Programming Assistant. trade of ITI
* Child Online Protection Act, a former U.S. law to protect minors from certain material on the internet
* Canadian Owners and Pilots Asso ...
. Later that summer, he was named as one of the announcers for
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters ...
's coverage of soccer at the
2016 Summer Olympics. In 2017, Fox named him part of their team covering that year's
CONCACAF Gold Cup
The CONCACAF Gold Cup ( es, Copa de Oro de la CONCACAF, french: Coupe D'or CONCACAF) is the main association football competition of the men's national football teams governed by CONCACAF, determining the continental champion of North Amer ...
. He has also called
UEFA Europa League
The UEFA Europa League (abbreviated as UEL, or sometimes, UEFA EL), formerly the UEFA Cup, is an annual football club competition organised since 1971 by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) for eligible European football clubs. ...
,
Bundesliga
The Bundesliga (; ), sometimes referred to as the Fußball-Bundesliga () or 1. Bundesliga (), is a professional association football league in Germany. At the top of the German football league system, the Bundesliga is Germany's primary footbal ...
,
MLS
Major League Soccer (MLS) is a men's professional soccer league sanctioned by the United States Soccer Federation, which represents the sport's highest level in the United States. The league comprises 29 teams—26 in the U.S. and 3 in Cana ...
,
FIFA U-17 World Cup
The FIFA U-17 World Cup, founded as the FIFA U-16 World Championship, later changed to U-17 in 1991 and to its current name in 2007, is the world championship of association football for male players under the age of 17 organized by ''Fédératio ...
, and
FIFA U-20 World Cup
The FIFA U-20 World Cup is the biennial football world championship tournament for FIFA members’ men's national teams with players under the age of 20. The competition has been staged every two years since the inaugural tournament in 1977 when ...
action for Fox. Followill was also an announcer for the
2018 FIFA World Cup
The 2018 FIFA World Cup was the 21st FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial world championship for men's national football teams organized by FIFA. It took place in Russia from 14 June to 15 July 2018, after the country was awarded the hosting righ ...
.
Football
Followill also announces play-by-play action for college football telecasts for
Fox Sports
Fox Sports is the brand name for a number of sports channels, broadcast divisions, programming, and other media around the world.
The ''Fox Sports'' name has since been used for other sports media assets. These assets are held mainly by the F ...
.
Earlier in his career, he was the play-by-play announcer for the
SMU football team.
Personal life
Followill is a native of the
Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex
The Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, officially designated Dallas–Fort Worth–Arlington by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, is a conurbated metropolitan statistical area in the U.S. state of Texas encompassing 11 counties and ancho ...
.
He graduated from
Northwest High School in
Justin, Texas
Justin is a city in Denton County, Texas, United States. The population was 4,409 in 2020. It is also an outer ring suburb of Fort Worth.
History
In 1848, approximately 70 followers of the French utopian socialist Étienne Cabet arrived in what ...
. He attended the
University of North Texas
The University of North Texas (UNT) is a public research university in Denton, Texas. It was founded as a nonsectarian, coeducational, private teachers college in 1890 and was formally adopted by the state 11 years later."Denton Normal Schoo ...
, but left to pursue his broadcasting career. In 2020, after 3 years of resuming course work, Mark Followill graduated from North Texas with a Bachelor of Applied Arts and Sciences degree.
References
Living people
National Basketball Association broadcasters
Association football commentators
College football announcers
SMU Mustangs football announcers
High school football announcers in the United States
University of North Texas alumni
Olympic Games broadcasters
Year of birth missing (living people)
{{US-tv-bio-stub