
Behind the Mic: ESPN Unfurls Long List of College Football Playoff Talent, Re-Signs Two Notable Baseball Faces By Kristian Hernandez, Associate Editor
Friday, December 13, 2019 - 1:23 pm
Print This Story
Story Highlights
Behind the Mic provides a roundup of recent news regarding on-air talent, including new deals, departures, and assignments compiled from press releases and reports around the industry. In this week's edition, ESPN readies for the college football playoff, the network extends the deals of two baseball personalities, and CBS Sports HQ adds three names to studio list.
ESPN's postseason college football coverage is highlighted by the exclusive presentation of the College Football Playoff, which begins with the Semifinals on Saturday, Dec. 28. The College Football Playoff Semifinal at the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl will feature No. 1 LSU vs. No. 4 Oklahoma (4 p.m. ET) from Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Ga. The Peach Bowl precedes the CFP Semifinal at the PlayStation Fiesta Bowl between No. 2 Ohio State and No. 3 Clemson (8 p.m.) from State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Ariz. The winners will play in the CFP National Championship Presented by AT&T (8 p.m.) from the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in New Orleans on Monday, Jan. 13.
In the broadcasting booth, Chris Fowler and Kirk Herbstreit will call the Fiesta Bowl, while Sean McDonough and Todd Blackledge team up for the Peach Bowl. Fowler, Herbstreit, and Blackledge have called a CFP Semifinal all six years of the system, with Fowler and Herbstreit working together in each of those years. McDonough is calling his second consecutive CFP Semifinal with Blackledge.
ESPN will utilize reporters Maria Taylor and Tom Rinaldi at the Fiesta Bowl, their third and sixth CFP Semifinal, respectively. At the Peach Bowl, Holly Rowe and Laura Rutledge will report, also their sixth and third, respectively. Taylor will be with Clemson, Rinaldi reports on Ohio State, while Rowe is with LSU and Rutledge has Oklahoma.
Fowler, Herbstreit, Taylor, and Rinaldi will head to Pasadena to call the Rose Bowl Game Presented by Northwestern Mutual between No. 6 Oregon and No. 8 Wisconsin (5 p.m.), and McDonough, Blackledge, and Rowe travel to New Orleans for the Allstate Sugar Bowl featuring No. 5 Georgia vs. No. 7 Baylor (8:30 p.m.) on New Year's Day. At the Rose Bowl, Taylor will report on the Ducks and Rinaldi on the Badgers.
ESPN's presentation of the New Year's Six will begin with the Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic between No. 16 Memphis and No. 10 Penn State (noon) on Saturday, Dec. 28, which will lead into the CFP Semifinals. The Capital One Orange Bowl between No. 9 Florida and No. 24 Virginia (8 p.m.) on Monday, Dec. 30, will precede the New Year's Day bowls and follow the CFP Semifinals.
Mark Jones, Dusty Dvoracek, and Olivia Dekker will call the Nittany Lions-Tigers matchup, with Steve Levy, Brian Griese, Todd McShay, and Molly McGrath on the Gators-Cavaliers.
Levy, Griese, McShay, and McGrath will also call the CFP Semifinal at the Peach Bowl on ESPN Radio, while Sean Kelley, Barrett Jones, and Ian Fitzsimmons call the Fiesta Bowl for the network.
Herbstreit calls the Las Vegas Bowl featuring No. 19 Boise State vs. Washington with Bob Wischusen and McGrath, airing in primetime (7:30 p.m.) on Saturday, Dec. 21 on ABC
Dave Pasch, Greg McElroy, and Tom Luginbill call the Vrbo Citrus Bowl between No. 14 Michigan vs. No. 13 Alabama (1 p.m.) on ABC
Jason Benetti, Rod Gilmore, and Quint Kessenich call the Outback Bowl featuring No. 18 Minnesota vs. No. 12 Auburn (1 p.m.) on ESPN
Wischusen, Dan Orlovsky, and Allison Williams call the Camping World Bowl between No. 15 Notre Dame vs. Iowa State (noon) who are playing each other for the first time, December 28 on ABC.
Ryan Leaf will make his ESPN bowl debut calling his alma mater as Washington State plays Air Force in the Cheez-It Bowl (10:15 p.m.) Friday, Dec. 27 on ESPN. Leaf teams with Clay Matvick on the call
ESPN has re-signed veteran Major League Baseball analyst Eduardo P rez to a multi-year extension. P rez will remain one of ESPN's signature baseball analysts, contributing to both event and studio coverage. P rez first joined ESPN in 2006 and served as an analyst through 2010. He returned to ESPN in 2014.
P rez will continue his game analyst role for ESPN's Monday Night Baseball and its coverage of MLB Opening Day, Holiday Baseball and many of ESPN's international MLB telecasts. P rez will also remain the primary analyst on ESPN's Statcast-driven alternate presentations for the T-Mobile Home Run Derby and its Wild Card coverage.
The versatile P rez will regularly appear on ESPN's Baseball Tonight, SportsCenter, MLB on ESPN Radio, and other news and information platforms. He will also continue his analyst role for the Men's College World Series.
In recent years, P rez has become a staple of ESPN's international MLB game telecasts, helping to lead coverage of the 2016 spring training game in Cuba, regular-season games in Mexico and Puerto Rico, and for the Japan Opening Series in 2019
ESPN has also reached an extension with Major League Baseball analyst Doug Glanville. The nine-year MLB veteran will continue to provide expert insight on ESPNstudio programs including Baseball Tonight and SportsCenter.
Glanvillefirst joined ESPN as an analyst in 2010 for seven years and returned in March of 2019 as a contributor to ESPN studio programming. He spent the majority of his career with the Philadelphia Phillies, and also played for the Chicago Cubs and the Texas Rangers. Glanville tallied 1,100 hits throughout his career and retired in 2004 with his streak of 293 games without an error intact
CBS Sports HQ has also expanded its talent roster with three new anchors.
Brandon Baylor joins CBS Sports HQ from WFTS in Tampa, FL, where he had s
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
15/06/2025
July 2025 in Dublin, Berlin, Amsterdam & London
Photo: Thea Martre
Music Production for Women (MPW) have announced that they will be running a series of fo...
15/06/2025
Composer/producer launches free virtual instruments
Sulcata Sound is the latest venture of Jason Graves, a two-time British Academy Award-winnning composer,...
14/06/2025
NEW YORK Pluto TV and the All Womens Sports Network have launched a free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) AWSN channel in the U.S., Canada, the U.K. and the Nor...
14/06/2025
NEW YORK and CINCINNATI E.W. Scripps has announced a new, multiyear agreement with the WNBA that will continue Ions regular-season coverage of the league on Fri...
14/06/2025
WASHINGTON The National Association of Broadcasters highlighted the hidden importance of spectrum in the production of major sporting events and described wha...
14/06/2025
WASHINGTON Sunsetting ATSC 1.0, expanding business opportunities for NextGen Broadcast and increasing international adoption of the ATSC 3.0 standard were top o...
14/06/2025
SAN FRANCISCO Samba TV and Acxiom have announced that they will dramatically expand their longstanding relationship....
14/06/2025
July 2025 in Dublin, Berlin, Amsterdam & London
Photo: Thea Martre
Music Production for Women (MPW) have announced that they will be running a series of fo...
14/06/2025
San Francisco State University's School of Cinema Uses Blackmagic Design
Brie Clayton June 13, 2025
0 Comments
More than 40 Blackmagic Design came...
14/06/2025
Boris FX Mocha Pro Adds New AI Tools To Tackle VFX Tasks Fast
Jessie Electa Petrov June 13, 2025
0 Comments
The 2025.5 release helps artists work more...
14/06/2025
AJA Debuts DRM2-Plus Mini-Converter Frame at InfoComm 2025
Brie Clayton June 13, 2025
0 Comments
Next-gen frame addresses diverse rackmount needs wit...
13/06/2025
(L-R) Lindsay Utz, Michelle Walshe, and The Right Honourable Dame Jacinda Ardern attend the 2025 Sundance Film Festival premiere of Prime Minister at Eccles T...
13/06/2025
Photo credit: Atsushi Nishijima
If you're a true lover of rom-coms, chances...
13/06/2025
Pure Drama and Fierce Rivalries set to dominate the world's most iconic spor...
13/06/2025
Johannesburg, 12 June 2025 - The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an a...
13/06/2025
ABILENE. Texas A severe storm knocked down the tower and severely damaged the news studio and main facility of Sinclair-owned KTXS here on Sunday, June 8....
13/06/2025
Berklee's Music Business/Management Department Recognized by the Music Biz A...
13/06/2025
WASHINGTON The ATSC, the Broadcast Standards Association, honored veteran technologist Aldo Cugnini and Clarence Hau, Senior Vice President of Standards, Policy...
13/06/2025
(Editor's note: The 2025 UFL Championship Game between the D.C. Defenders and Michigan Panthers kicks off Saturday, June 14, at 8 p.m. Eastern. The game wil...
13/06/2025
New iPad/iPhone synth App announced
Following on from last year's release of Gradient Synth - which reached #6 on the App Store's Paid Music charts ...
13/06/2025
LONDON Warner Bros. Discovery has announced that HBO Max will launch direct-to-consumer in multiple new countries this July as the streamer becomes available in...
13/06/2025
AI voice transcription and captioning platform Verbit has added a new feature to its Captivate ASR solution the ability to identify specific features in automat...
13/06/2025
WASHINGTON Federal Communications Commission member Anna Gomez has wrapped up two weeks in California visiting broadcasters, television studio executives, enter...
13/06/2025
WASHINGTON The U.S. House of Representatives voted mostly along party lines to approve a rescission package that would cancel $9.4 billion in previously approve...
13/06/2025
At InfoComm 2025, AJA Video Systems announced DRM2-Plus, an intuitive, high-capacity 3RU frame that can neatly house up to 24 AJA Mini-Converters. Tailored to s...
13/06/2025
Cinema advertising leader to leverage AOS and suite of AI-enabled solutions to optimize forecasting, yield management, and streamlined ad sales and operations a...
13/06/2025
Manfrotto has launched the ONE Hybrid Tripod, a new support system designed specifically for professional content creators working with mirrorless cameras acros...
13/06/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that its Media Edge Gateway (MEG), an ATSC 3.0 software-based IRD, now supports Device Security requ...
13/06/2025
LiveU, the global leader in live IP-video contribution, production and distribution solutions, is deepening its commitment to the German-speaking market with th...
13/06/2025
Chaos, the leader in architectural visualisation software, today announces Chaos Corona 13, giving archviz designers new ways to add eye-catching style and flai...
13/06/2025
PALI's Nena Music Video Shot with Blackmagic Design
Brie Clayton June 12, 2025
0 Comments
Blackmagic Cinema Camera 6K and DaVinci Resolve Studio b...
13/06/2025
OddBeast Powers Up iRobot's Newest Roombas with Suite of CGI Launch Assets
Brie Clayton June 12, 2025
0 Comments
The motion design and production ...
13/06/2025
On Chick Coreas Birthday, a Newly Uncovered Archival Release The Visitors, composed by Corea and performed by vibraphonist Gary Burton and pianist Kirill Gers...
13/06/2025
In fulfilment of a recommendation by the Government's Expert Advisory Commit...
13/06/2025
SVG Sit-Down: Backblaze's Gleb Budman Talks Products, Partnerships, and the ...
13/06/2025
SVG Sit-Down: DAZN's Walker Jacobs Calls Streaming the FIFA Club World Cup ...
13/06/2025
New Sponsor Spotlight: Vecima Networks' Paul Strickland on How Improving QoE...
13/06/2025
Pitch Perspective: Where's Next for Specialty Cameras in Soccer? Leaders from Sky Austria and ACS discuss the possibilities of camera placement pitchside B...
13/06/2025
Premiership Rugby Final 2025: Vintage clash between Bath and Leicester gets full...
13/06/2025
Premiership Rugby Final 2025: TNT Sports gears up for Bath vs Leicester battle w...
13/06/2025
NCAA Men's College World Series: ESPN Adds Two-Point SupraCam, Invests in Ne...
13/06/2025
New FSWX signal and spectrum analyzer with novel architecture overcomes limits o...
13/06/2025
Apple today announced the addition of iPad to Self Service Repair, providing iPad owners with access to repair manuals, genuine Apple parts, Apple Diagnostics t...
13/06/2025
CUPERTINO, CALIFORNIA Apple today previewed iOS 26, a major update that brings a beautiful new design, intelligent experiences, and improvements to the apps use...
13/06/2025
At Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), Apple unveiled Apple Games, an all-new destination designed to help players jump back into the games they...
13/06/2025
Industrial AI isn't slowing down. Germany is ready.
Following London Tech Week and GTC Paris at VivaTech, NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang's Europea...
12/06/2025
In 2018, Spotify launched Heart & Soul, a mental health initiative developed to ...
12/06/2025
50 Years Strong: SBS and NITV Supercharge NAIDOC Week 2025 in a joint 50th celeb...