After going on a sports TV heater not seen in years, Mike Tirico is finally getting his due as the world’s best all-around sportscaster.
It’s hard to say somebody has “arrived” at age 59. But Tirico’s exemplary work for NBC Sports over the last month is creating daylight between him and his contemporaries.
Only two weeks ago, Tirico called his first Super Bowl with Sunday Night Football partner Cris Collinsworth. He then immediately hosted “Primetime in Milan” from the confetti-covered field at Levi’s Stadium before jetting to Italy to host NBC’s coverage of the 2026 Winter Olympics.
That makes Tirico the first U.S. broadcaster to call the Super Bowl and host a Winter Games in the same year. Oh, and did we mention he’s also NBC’s lead play-by-play voice for the NBA as the network returns to hardwood coverage for the first time in 21 years?
It’s not often a host’s closing wrap-up goes viral. But that’s what happened Sunday night as Tirico put a bow on Team USA’s thrilling gold medal win over men’s hockey rival Canada. In a stirring essay, Tirico urged young people to pursue their own dreams, just like Team USA.
“Those dreams are formed now. Go chase them and go get them,” said Tirico. “Because our country loves sports—and it brings us together unlike anything else.”
The live monologue was flawless, heartfelt, and inspiring. No wonder Tirico drew instant praise from inside and outside the industry.
Peacock’s Olympic Gold Zone host Scott Hanson wrote on X/Twitter: “@miketirico and@NBCSports were as good as it gets in that last hour. All-Time Great sports broadcasting there.”
Fellow sportscaster Vic Lombardi tweeted: “I desperately need to know if Mike ad-libbed all that or if he’s using the prompter. Either way, it’s one of the all-time great closes to a sporting event I’ve ever seen. It resonated deeply with the audience. If he did that off the top of his head, crown him now. Wow.”
Even an executive from a rival network, Fox Sports president of insights and analytics Mike Mulvihill, had high praise.
“Mike Tirico’s lovely monologue to close out the epic gold medal game shows how the way we think about the core appeal of sports has changed, and for the better IMO,” he posted on X. “More than ever it’s about bringing people together and inspiring kids. Bring on the World Cup.”
Tirico joined NBC in 2016 as the heir apparent to Bob Costas on Olympic coverage and Al Michaels on the NFL. As I wrote during the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, he’s one of the last of the sports TV iron men.
Back in the day, legends like Costas, Michaels, Curt Gowdy, Jim McKay, Chris Schenkel, and Howard Cosell called multiple sports with equal aplomb. There were also story-telling essayists like Jack Whitaker, who put what we just watched into instant perspective with verve and style.
But those days are now mostly over. Jim Nantz, the face of CBS Sports, gave up his longtime lead role on the NCAA tournament to Ian Eagle to focus on the NFL and golf. Ditto for ESPN’s Joe Buck, who now sticks to Monday Night Football after calling football, MLB, and even golf at Fox.
Tirico, on the other hand, keeps adding plum assignments to his growing résumé. He succeeded Michaels as the play-by-play voice of SNF in 2022. NBC hasn’t missed a beat, with SNF ranking as the No. 1 show in primetime in 2025 for a record 15th year in a row. Besides the NFL, Olympics, and NBA, Tirico also hosts NBC’s coverage of the Kentucky Derby and golf’s U.S. Open and British Open championships.
Success wasn’t always a sure thing for the Queens, N.Y., native. Especially not after ESPN gave him a lengthy suspension in the early 1990s following multiple allegations of sexual harassment. NBC stood by Tirico after the accusations resurfaced at the height of the #MeToo era and Matt Lauer’s departure from the network in 2017.
Nearly a decade later, Tirico is now firmly established as the face of the network’s sports coverage. In addition to recently calling his first Super Bowl, these last two weeks marked his fifth time hosting the Olympics. Costas, who hosted a record 12 Olympics, called attention to his successor’s versatility during a recent interview with FOS.
“Mike is excellent at what he does. He was the perfect choice to succeed Al [Michaels] on the football and succeed me as the host of the Olympics,” Costas said. “Anyone who’s any good has their own distinctive style. But I think there are similarities between me and Mike in that he’s able to host and also do play-by-play. He has some of the same interests and characteristics that I had while still being his own man.”
