NBC announces new 'Sunday Night Football' broadcast crew: Mike Tirico, Cris Collinsworth, Melissa Stark

NBC announced its new "Sunday Night Football" broadcast crew on Tuesday, officially revealing the replacements for play-by-play man Al Michaels and sideline reporter Michele Tafoya.

Mike Tirico, NBC's longtime sports broadcaster, will now be joining Cris Collinsworth in the booth for play-by-play, and Melissa Stark will be doing the sideline reporting.

“'Sunday Night Football' is destination viewing and we are thrilled to have Mike, Cris and Melissa call the action and tell the stories that football fans have come to expect from prime time TV’s #1 show,” NBC Sports chairman Pete Bevacqua said in a statement.

Tirico's resume is well known. He has been a part of NBC's NFL coverage since 2016, but he does so much more. In just the past year he served as the prime-time host for NBC's Olympics coverage, hosted the Super Bowl pregame show, horse racing's Triple Crown, golf's U.S. Open and the Indianapolis 500. Essentially, if you watch sports on NBC, you have to work really hard to avoid hearing his voice.

HOUSTON, TX - OCTOBER 08: NBC Sports analyst Mike Tirico on the air before the football game between the Kansas City Chiefs and Houston Texans on October 8, 2017 at NRG Stadium in Houston, Texas. (Photo by Ken Murray/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Mike Tirico will be filling Al Michaels' old seat on Sunday Night Football. (Photo by Ken Murray/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images) (Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

Stark has been a sideline reporter in the past, having done the job in the early 2000s for ABC's "Monday Night Football." She has spent over a decade as a host and reporter for NFL Network, worked three Olympics for NBC, and also spent four years with NBC News doing work on the "Today Show" and MSNBC.

There has been a lot of moving and shaking in the football broadcast world since the Super Bowl in February, and NBC wasn't exempt from it. Michaels' contract with NBC ran out, and when it wasn't renewed he signed with Amazon to call its Thursday night games. Tafoya has left sports broadcasting altogether and is now pursuing a career in Minnesota politics.

Now it seems that the moving and shaking has come to an end, at least for now. NFL broadcast teams are mostly in place, and all they need are games to call. Tirico, Collinsworth and Stark will get their first shot as a trio at the Pro Football Hall of Fame Game on Aug. 4, and will call their first regular-season game on Sept. 8.

Advertisement