Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame Welcomes Nine Industry Legends During Touching NYC Ceremony

Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame Welcomes Nine Industry Legends During Touching NYC Ceremony Ackerman, Barrow, Collinsworth, Fletcher, Hellmuth, EJ, Joyce, Petitti, and Zachary are inducted By Jason Dachman, Editorial Director, U.S.

Wednesday, December 13, 2023 - 10:42 am

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The sports-broadcasting industry came together in New York on Tuesday night to induct the 16th class of the Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame. Nine legends from both in front of and behind the camera were inducted during an unforgettable, emotional ceremony at the New York Hilton Midtown Hotel. Hosted by CBS Sports' James Brown, this year's event once again donated all table sales to the Sports Broadcasting Fund, which supports industry members in times of need.

This year's class of inductees comprises Val Ackerman, Big East Conference commissioner and first president of the WNBA; Lance Barrow, former CBS Sports producer; Cris Collinsworth, NBC Sunday Night Football analyst; Tom Fletcher, inventor of the super-slo-mo camera and other innovations; Steve Hellmuth, former NBA EVP, media operations and technology; Ernie Johnson Jr., long-time NBA on TNT studio-show host; Andrea Joyce, leading sports reporter; Tony Petitti, Big Ten Conference commissioner and former TV-network executive; and Jeff Zachary, legendary camera operator.

Cris Collinsworth, the Familiar Football Analyst in Primetime Hanging up the cleats after a 15-year playing career and moving directly into sports broadcasting can be quite daunting, but no one has transitioned as seamlessly as Sports Broadcasting Hall of Famer Cris Collinsworth. Becoming synonymous with immense energy, the expertise of breaking down a play with precision, and the smoothest entrance to a broadcast in the business, the 17-time Sports Emmy Award winner - nine as game analyst, eight as studio analyst - is one of the most accomplished on-air talent in sports television.

The only NFL analyst other than John Madden to receive a Sports Emmy for Outstanding Sports Event Analyst, Collinsworth has taken home the award nine times. He currently sits alongside Mike Tirico in the NBC Sunday Night Football announce booth. His career began in 1990 when he joined NBC Sports as a game analyst for NFL coverage and selected college-football broadcasts. In 2005, he entered the NFL on Fox broadcast booth alongside play-by-play announcer Joe Buck and former quarterback Troy Aikman to form the broadcaster's lead broadcast team.

Val Ackerman, Basketball Pioneer, and Women's-Sports Trailblazer Few people in the history of sports business and media have built a more successful and impactful career on making the sports world better than she experienced it than Val Ackerman. Founding president of the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA). President of USA Basketball. An executive behind the iconic Dream Team. Commissioner of the Big East Conference. Ackerman's life has taken her across the executive offices of her beloved game of basketball and forever reshaped the world of sports - for athletes, for fans, for television, for women, for all of us.

A member of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, Ackerman has served since 2013 as commissioner of the Big East Conference. She previously served as an attorney and senior executive at the NBA and, as founding president of the WNBA, helped lead the groundbreaking launch and the day-to-day operations in the league's formative years. She has served as president of USA Basketball and as U.S. representative to the International Basketball Federation (FIBA) and advised various organizations on women's sports strategies.

Tom Fletcher, a Passion for Production Innovation Many familiar angles of sports coverage did not exist before Tom Fletcher: in NBA and big-time college-basketball coverage, for example, the ubiquitous Above the Rim (atop the shot clock) or remote-controlled Slam Cam (behind the glass) camera position. Coverage has come a long way since the days of the 1991 NBA Finals with a full-size Hot Head or the 1994 NBA All-Star game, which deployed an industrial security camera requiring two people to operate it.

Transforming sports production with such innovations as the super-slo-mo camera and smaller remote-controlled and RF cameras, Fletcher changed the nature of sports coverage by allowing cameras to be located to deliver maximum emotional impact. Tom and his father, Archie, started Fletcher Chicago in 1987, and the company now provides specialty cameras to NFL, MLB, NBA, and NHL broadcasters throughout North America.

Andrea Joyce, the Resourceful Reporter During a career that spans nearly 30 years on the national stage, Andrea Joyce has spent time at ESPN, CBS Sports, and now NBC Sports, building a reputation for solid reporting on a wide range of global and national sports events. Since 2000, she has been a reporter for NBC Sports Group. She has served in a variety of roles at 12 Olympic Games, including the past eight with NBC. She has served as a reporter for NBA on NBC and WNBA on NBC broadcasts.

Joyce debuted as a reporter for ESPN at the 1988 Seoul Olympic Summer Games and worked three Winter Games for CBS: 1992 in Albertville, France; 1994 in Lillehammer, Norway; and 1998 in Nagano, Japan. Since her first Games, in 1988, she has embraced the Games' communal nature, which brings countries of the world together. An appreciation for sports, the tact to comprehend others' situations, and the ability to grab the story without being inconsiderate or disrespectful has carried Joyce to the pinnacle of her profession.

Steve Hellmuth, NBA's Technology Visionary Firsts are always an important part of a Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame r sum , and Steve Hellmuth, recently retired EVP, operations and technology, NBA and former chair

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