Play-By-Play Announcer, Thursday Night Football
One of the most accomplished and revered broadcasters in television history, Al Michaels was named the play-by-play announcer of Prime Video’s exclusive presentation of Thursday Night Football in March 2022, one month after calling his 11th Super Bowl broadcast. He begins his second season as play-by-play announcer for TNF this August.
Michaels is the only commentator to helm the Super Bowl, World Series, NBA Finals, and the NHL’s Stan
Play-By-Play Announcer, Thursday Night Football
One of the most accomplished and revered broadcasters in television history, Al Michaels was named the play-by-play announcer of Prime Video’s exclusive presentation of Thursday Night Football in March 2022, one month after calling his 11th Super Bowl broadcast. He begins his second season as play-by-play announcer for TNF this August.
Michaels is the only commentator to helm the Super Bowl, World Series, NBA Finals, and the NHL’s Stanley Cup Finals on network television. After a 20-year run as the play-by-play voice of Monday Night Football on ABC, he called Sunday Night Football on NBC for 16 years. When Prime Video kicked off exclusive coverage of Thursday Night Football in 2022, Michaels became the only broadcaster to handle play-by-play for all three of the NFL’s prime-time packages.
Among his many accolades, Michaels has won eight Emmy awards—seven for Outstanding Sports Personality, Play-by-Play, as well as the Lifetime Achievement Award in 2011. In addition, he has three times (1980, 1983, and 1986) been honored by the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association, and was inducted into the NSSA Hall of Fame in 1998. Michaels was named Sportscaster of the Year in 1996 by the American Sportscasters Association, and in 1991, he was named Sportscaster of the Year by the Washington Journalism Review. In 2004, he was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In December 2020, Michaels was honored with the Ford C. Frick Award for excellence in broadcasting by the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. Michaels is one of only five broadcasters to be distinguished with baseball’s highest broadcasting honor and receive the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s Pete Rozelle Radio-Television Award, joining Dick Enberg, Lindsey Nelson, Jack Buck, and Curt Gowdy.
Michaels earned his first Sportscaster of the Year award in 1980, the year he delivered what is widely regarded as the most treasured call in sports television history—“Do you believe in miracles? Yes!”—as the U.S. men’s hockey team pulled off a dramatic upset victory over the USSR at the Lake Placid Winter Olympics. His stature within Olympic broadcasting grew with his coverage of figure skating and hockey at the 1984 Winter Games in Sarajevo, and track & field and road cycling at the Summer Games in Los Angeles. He also called hockey during the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympic Games. Michaels has also made a mark on professional boxing, having called the classic 1985 championship match between Thomas “The Hit Man” Hearns and “Marvelous” Marvin Hagler.
Regarded as one of the best baseball announcers of all time, Michaels was ABC’s lead baseball play-by-play announcer during the network’s coverage of Major League Baseball. He has also earned praise as a journalist and became just the second sportscaster in history to receive a News Emmy nomination for his coverage of the San Francisco earthquake during the 1989 World Series.
Michaels currently resides in Los Angeles, California.
