General

Week 13 NFL Announcing: Dick Enberg is Skewing Local

Dec 4, 2009, 2:55 PM UTC

Okay, this news probably isn’t helping the argument that baseball isn’t just for old fuddy duddies anymore, but it is news, and it is significant in the media landscape.

Dick Enberg is leaving his national gig with CBS to become the television voice of the San Diego Padres. I wish there was a way to avoid the obvious pun of responding to that news with a sardonic, “oh my.” But it’s not often that announcers of Enberg’s importance in the industry make such a drastic shift so late in their careers. Sure, there are many old-time broadcasters (Enberg is 74-years old) still calling games, and sure, there are some greats in the industry – Marv Albert for example – known for their national voice who spend most of their time with a local team. But few, if any, announcers go from the national stage to a local one in a sport they haven’t covered on a day-in-day-out basis in more than 30 years. Enberg did get his start in the industry as the radio guy for the California Angels back in the ‘60s and ‘70s (among many other jobs), so this is a return home in more ways than one.

â‡¥A source familiar with the deal said the Padres have signed Enberg to a multi-year contract that calls for him to call 120-125 games on Channel 4 San Diego. The 74-year-old Enberg, who lives in San Diego, is currently employed by CBS, where he works with Chargers Hall of Fame quarterback Dan Fouts on NFL telecasts.â‡¥â‡¥He’ll continue to call Wimbledon and the U.S. Open Tennis Championships, but will also give up network football and basketball, although he’ll finish this NFL season.â‡¥

This season, CBS has assigned the team of Enberg and Fouts to six San Diego Chargers games thus far – four at home and one each at Kansas City and Denver. I always assumed it was to put Fouts on the Chargers games, but it seems that it may have really been an effort to give Enberg a lighter travel schedule. Well, he'll be calling even more games from home next year.

CBS
CBS has front-loaded its schedule this week, featuring five early games to just one late. The power of Brady still controls CBS, as Jim Nantz and Phil Simms will call Pats at Miami. But according to the map, only the Northeast, parts of southern Florida and pockets around the country (Moblie, Portland, etc) will get the top CBS crew. Even more interesting is the CBS second crew's assignment of Oakland at Pittsburgh, which is going to even less of the country than the Patriots game, with fewer major markets.

The two biggest games look to be Denver at Kansas City with Enberg and Fouts on the call and Tennessee at Indianapolis, which is clearly the most exciting game on CBS’s schedule this week – Vince Young trying to run the table against the Peyton Manning and the undefeated Colts. Ian Eagle and Rich Gannon get that call, which will go to a large part of the Midwest and Mountain time zones not getting the Denver-KC game.

Gus Johnson and Steve Tasker get the last early game of Houston at Jacksonville while Kevin Harlan and Solomon Wilcots call San Diego at Cleveland in the late game.

FOX
FOX has seven games on Sunday, and five of those games are in the early timeslot. Kenny, Moose and Goose will call Philadelphia at Atlanta in the Michael Vick Bowl. Finally the Saints are getting some love, as Sam Rosen and Tim Ryan (okay that’s not the love) call their game at Washington that will be going to more than half the country. That said, the game isn’t on in Philly, New York, Dallas, Chicago, St. Louis, Detroit, Atlanta, Miami or any other major city (not named New Orleans or Washington) east of Texas. So maybe that’s not so much love after all.

Dick Stockton and Trent Green get the Rams at Chicago while Thom Brennaman and Brian Billick get Detroit at Cincinnati. Ron Pitts and John Lynch get Tampa at Carolina to round out the early games.

There are just two late games for FOX with nearly all of the country getting Dallas at the Giants with Joe Buck and Troy Aikman on the call. Expect another FOX record-breaking ratings press release at the start of next week. People in the Pacific Northwest will get Chris Myers and Ross Tucker, a former NFL player who writes for SI.com and talks on Sirius NFL Radio among other places. Yes, I had to Google him to find out and no, it doesn’t look like he’s called any network-televised NFL games before.

National Games
Al Michaels and Cris Collinsworth get Brett Favre and the Vikings traveling to Arizona on SNF while the MNF crew of Mike Tirico, Ron Jaworski and Jon Gruden will call Baltimore at Green Bay.

Map links and announce crew pairings courtesy of The 506.

And there aren’t too many songs about San Diego, or Dick Enberg for that matter. But since Enberg is going to the Padres, this seems like a no-brainer.