NBC Sports is hiring Mike Tomlin as its top NFL studio analyst, sources confirmed to Front Office Sports.
The hiring of the former Steelers coach will help fill the void left by Tony Dungy, who NBC let go of earlier this year after 17 seasons on the Football Night in America studio show. The Athletic broke the news of NBC’s hiring of Tomlin on Tuesday.
FOS previously pegged NBC as the “clear favorite” to hire Tomlin after breaking the news he had signed with agent Alex Flanagan of The Montag Group for representation in the media space. The 54-year-old Tomlin was widely considered the top NFL TV free agent after parting ways with the Steelers following the 2025 season.
As expected, the NBC-Tomlin negotiations wrapped up before the key “upfront” selling season in May, when networks try to sell the bulk of their advertising inventory to Madison Avenue. It’s easy to envision NBC showing off Tomlin as a special guest at its upfront presentation at Radio City Music Hall on May 11, just as it did last year when it announced Michael Jordan as a special contributor to its NBA coverage.
After 19 seasons in Pittsburgh, the Super Bowl winner stepped down as Steelers coach in January. Now the question is whether Tomlin will embrace a second career in sports media like his predecessor, Bill Cowher, did with CBS. Or will Tomlin use TV as a pit stop before returning to the NFL sidelines, a la Sean Payton and Bruce Arians?
NBC declined to comment.
