Sports
Nepotism in sports broadcasting: 'A tremendous advantage,' but 'what do you do with it?'
When Jac Collinsworth, at just 27 years old, debuted on the prestigious job as NBC’s play-by-play voice for Notre Dame football in September 2022, he succeeded one of the most decorated announcers in sports, Mike Tirico.
To receive such a position suggested he was a sportscasting prodigy, but from his first game — when Marshall upset Notre Dame — Collinsworth did not sound like he deserved the national stage in this role. He lacked precision and rhythm, and he kept saying, “Mmm, hmm,” a bad habit that usually is eradicated with years of practice.
The focus on Collinsworth only grew last year, especially during a flat performance with his partner, Jason Garrett, on a Notre Dame-USC prime-time game in October.
Underlying all the criticism is that Collinsworth’s father, Cris, is NBC’s top NFL analyst, showcased on “Sunday Night Football” and in five Super Bowl broadcasts. Jac also appears on the SNF pregame show as an on-site reporter/host, among other roles at the network.
Any son or daughter who goes into the family business is stamped with the nepotism label. Jac Collinsworth’s case was no different, but the attention grew as he floundered.
Though Collinsworth, after graduating from Notre Dame in 2017, had success at ESPN as a reporter and then on the sidelines and hosting for NBC Sports, his failure on the Fighting Irish games caused the man responsible for the move in the first place, Sam Flood, the president of production for NBC Sports, to finally remove Collinsworth from the role last month, admitting his mistake as Collinsworth did not have the requisite play-by-play reps yet for such a large assignment.
Jac Collinsworth, Cris Collinsworth and Flood all declined requests to be interviewed.
Jac Collinsworth working the Chargers-Bills game before Christmas with Tony Dungy, center, and Rodney Harrison. (Kirby Lee / USA Today)
Sportscasting is filled with father-and-son stories of succession. There are more successes than failures — and to be clear, Jac Collinsworth should not be put in either category just yet; especially at 29. He is just not alone.
This offseason, in Oakland, the A’s hired 24-year-old Chris Caray, a fourth-generation broadcaster dating back to his great-grandfather Harry. In Toronto, 23-year-old Ben Shulman, son of Dan, is joining the Blue Jays radio booth, just a door over from his father, who calls TV for the team along with his ESPN work.
There is a long list of sons and daughters following their parents into sportscasting from Mike Golic Sr. and Jr. to Karl and Sam Ravech to Kevin Harlan and Olivia Harlan Dekker.
And the trend is nothing new, as Fox Sports, after luring the NFL from CBS in the mid-1990s, hired three sons of famous play-by-play broadcasters — Joe Buck (son of Jack, voice of the St. Louis Cardinals and national football and baseball broadcasts), Kenny Albert (son of Marv, the legendary NBA play-by-play voice) and Thom Brennaman (son of Marty, the former voice of the Cincinnati Reds).
Like Fox three decades ago, NBC has shown a penchant for sportscasting offspring from Collinsworth to Chris Simms, son of Phil, and Noah Eagle, son of Ian.
Collinsworth’s demotion opened the door further for Noah Eagle to continue to rise. Eagle, who is just 27, excelled on Big Ten Saturday prime-time games and the NFL playoffs in his first season with NBC.
Next season and beyond, he and his analyst, Todd Blackledge, will continue on the Big Ten, but, in a given week, if Notre Dame is the top game on the network, the duo will slide over to that matchup.
Eagle has started on a path reminiscent of Buck’s, but the issue of nepotism in the booth is complicated.
When Joe Buck talks to kids who want to become a sportscaster, he often falls back on an old joke.
“My advice is to start with a famous father,” Buck told The Athletic.
Buck is often cited as the quintessential example of sportscasting nepotism, but he is also probably its greatest success story. His dad, Jack Buck, is one of the most legendary play-by-play announcers in history and, at 54, Joe has matched his father, if not exceeded his accomplishments.
Joe Buck has already called 24 World Series and six Super Bowls on TV. Jack called two World Series and one Super Bowl on the medium, while also being a constant soundtrack as the radio voice on both events.
Growing up in St. Louis, by the time Joe turned 6, he began studying how his dad prepared for MLB and NFL broadcasts.
At 12, Joe was calling games into a cassette recorder in an empty TV booth in the press box at Busch Stadium. On the drive home, he and his dad would listen back and Joe would learn. With Jack doing the reviews, it was as if a raspy-voiced Mozart was giving feedback to a teenage violinist.
Joe Buck (right), with Cris Collinsworth (left) and Troy Aikman on the call for Super Bowl XXXIX in Jacksonville, Fla., in February 2005. (Frank Micelotta / Getty Images)
By 21, Buck was slated to be in the Cardinals’ main booth, but before he could call a game, he had tears in his eyes.
He was still living at home when he opened the biggest newspaper in St. Louis, the Post-Dispatch, and saw that its respected media critic, Dan Caesar, had written a column about how nepotism helped Buck land the job.
In June 1990, Caesar wrote: “The burning question is why is Joe Buck, at age 21, being force-fed to Cardinals fans? The reason is simple, and it’s spelled B-U-C-K.”
It hurt Buck, but he knew it wasn’t wrong.
“While it crushed my soul reading about how off-putting my hiring was, he was right,” Buck said. “I remember crying about it.”
Buck said he felt like he was in a race but was beginning behind the starting line. While recognizing he had the advantages of an apprenticeship from the earliest of ages, he realized he had the job in large part because of his last name.
Over the years, even as Buck has often come across as the most confident guy in the booth, that insecurity drove him — and still does — because he always knew there would be those who felt his accomplishments were due to his dad’s Hall of Fame credentials.
“It was a gift that I got from Dan to be given a window into what people think,” Buck said. “It’s human nature. ‘Oh well, we know how he got the job.’”
Today, with social media, it is even more difficult, Buck said, because everyone’s a critic.
“It makes it really hard to kind of get your legs,” Buck said.
Eagle has done well under the same NBC umbrella as Collinsworth, but it comes from being credible on the broadcast.
“For Noah Eagle, he’s been meteoric, and he’s obviously worked really hard at this and put in the hours,” Buck said. “I think all of us — and it’s a big group — had the advantage of being around it as a kid. I think there’s something to that.”
Noah Eagle first thought he wanted to be a sportscaster at 13. Less than a decade later, he was sitting in front of one of the richest people in the world — Los Angeles Clippers owner Steve Ballmer — for 90 minutes in a conference room in the Seattle area, overlooking Mount Rainier and Lake Washington, in an attempt to land a job on Ballmer’s broadcast team.
In college, Noah did his best to be his own person — almost too much. Since his father and his mother, Alisa, both attended Syracuse, he was at first reluctant to go there but ultimately decided it was the right place for him. Once he got there, though, he tried to hide his last name. He would introduce himself as just “Noah.”
“I wanted to be like Cher or Madonna or Beyonce, you know. I just wanted to be ‘Noah,’ period,” Noah said.
He didn’t want the perception that any opportunity was because of his father, who is considered one of the best broadcasters in all of sports and will call the Final Four this year.
Halfway through Noah’s time at Syracuse, Ian told his son that he should embrace who he is, not run from it.
“I respected the fact that Noah wanted to be his own person when he got to Syracuse but reminded him to be proud of his last name,” Ian said.
“For Noah Eagle, he’s been meteoric, and he’s obviously worked really hard at this and put in the hours,” fellow broadcaster Joe Buck says. (James Black / Icon Sportswire via AP Images)
By his senior year, Noah had the respect of Olivia Stomski, an Emmy Award-winning sports producer who heads Syracuse’s Newhouse School’s sports media center. She had a contact with the Clippers, who were looking for candidates after longtime TV play-by-play voice Ralph Lawler retired.
Stomski recommended Eagle and Drew Carter, Eagle’s classmate, who is now part of the Boston Celtics’ broadcast crew. The Clippers liked each of their tapes but preferred Eagle’s and invited him out to Los Angeles for an initial interview.
Stomski said the Clippers knew this was Ian’s son, but it was Noah they were deciding on.
“I would say very little, if any,” Stomski said when asked Ian’s impact. “I know for a fact they didn’t call Ian. Ian didn’t call anyone else. If anyone was pushing, it was probably me.”
After Noah Eagle aced the first interview, he advanced to meet Ballmer, the Clippers’ owner. The two went back-and-forth with Eagle even having the chops to disagree on some points with Ballmer.
Eagle ended up receiving the radio job, not the TV one. It allowed him to have four years of play-by-play in the second-biggest market in the country.
This has led to calling Nickelodeon’s well-received Slimetime broadcasts, including for this year’s Super Bowl, and then landing NBC’s top college football job. He’s also called games for Fox Sports.
The four years of 82 games on radio and the playoffs gave Eagle the reps for the national stage. He then handed the Clippers job off.
“My biggest goal was that I would do a good enough job that other people would be more willing in the future to hire younger people,” Eagle said. “I would basically go out there and they would know a 22-year-old can get this done. And so the most pride that I’ve had, it literally did not come from the four years that I was there. It came from the fact that they hired another 22-year-old after me.”
At 22, Carlo Jiménez, right out of USC, succeeded Eagle as the radio voice of the Clippers. Jiménez’s dad is a professor at Santa Clara, teaching ceramics, and works in academic advising, while his mother is chief revenue officer for a tech startup. With an assist from Eagle, Jiménez has quickly leveled the playing field and is honing his craft on a big stage.
“I think it gives you a tremendous advantage,” Buck said of being the son of a famous sportscaster. “But then the question is, ‘What do you do with it?’”
(Top photo of Jac Collinsworth: Dylan Buell / Getty Images)
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Russell Wilson and Sean Payton spent just one NFL season together, but tension lingered after a rocky year.
And it appears the tension that built up from that tumultuous stretch continues to linger.
Wilson’s interview on the “Bussin’ With the Boys” podcast, recorded before last month’s Super Bowl between Seattle and New England, recently resurfaced.
In the interview, Wilson doubled down on his October comment labeling Payton “classless,” saying he felt slighted by his former coach’s remarks.
Head coach Sean Payton of the Denver Broncos talks to quarterback Russell Wilson on the sideline during an NFL preseason football game against the Arizona Cardinals at State Farm Stadium Aug. 11, 2023, in Glendale, Ariz. (Ryan Kang/Getty Images)
“[When] you’ve been on the same side or this and that, and I got the same amount of rings as you got, meaning Sean, right?” said Wilson, who won a Super Bowl with the Seattle Seahawks as Payton did coaching for the New Orleans Saints.
“I got a lot of respect for him as a play-caller, this and that, but to take a shot, I don’t like. I don’t think it’s necessary, you know, I mean, especially when I’m not even on your own team anymore. So, for me, there’s a point in time where you have to, I’ve realized, I’ve stayed quiet for so long. There’s a there’s a time and place where I’m not.
“I know who I am as a competitor, as a warrior, as a champion, too, and, you know, I’ve beaten Sean, too. You know, like we’ve been on the same place and the same thing. And so, it’s not a matter of disrespect. Just don’t disrespect me.”
Sean Payton and Russell Wilson of the Denver Broncos during an a game against the Minnesota Vikings at Empower Field at Mile High Nov. 19, 2023, in Denver, Colo. (Ryan Kang/Getty Images)
After a rocky one-year stint with the Pittsburgh Steelers in 2024, Wilson joined the New York Giants last offseason. However, he was relegated to a backup role after just three games.
Rookie Jaxson Dart quickly showed promise once he had the chance to start, but his season was briefly derailed by injury. Jameis Winston — not Wilson — stepped in for Dart in a handful of games. Dart threw three touchdowns in a Week 7 matchup with the Broncos, nearly pulling off an upset in what was eventually a close loss.
After the game, Payton said Dart provided a “spark” to the Giants’ offense.
“I was talking to [Giants owner] John Mara not too long ago, and I said, ‘We were hoping that that change would have happened long after our game,’” Payton said.
The New York Giants’ Russell Wilson attempts to escape a sack by Dallas Cowboys defensive end James Houston (53) in the first half of a game Sept. 14, 2025, in Arlington, Texas. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
Payton also said the Broncos would have faced less of a challenge had Wilson been under center.
“Classless … but not surprised,” Wilson responded in a social media post. “Didn’t realize you’re still bounty hunting 15+ years later though the media.”
Despite last season’s struggles and chatter about his football future, Wilson does not appear ready to call it quits in 2026.
“I wanna play a few more years for sure,” he said. “I think, for me, I’ve always had the vision of getting to 40, at least. I think the game is different. Quarterbacks, we get hit. It’s not, you know, we get hit hard, but … there’s certain rules. I mean, back in the day when I started, bro, it was you just get [clobbered].
“I mean, so I feel like the game allows you to, you know, live a little longer, I guess. I feel healthy. I feel great. But I think, more than anything else is, do you love the game? Do you love studying? Do you love the passion for it all? Do you love the process? Do you love the practice? Do you love — everybody loves the winning part of it, but it’s process. There’s a journey that you got to be obsessed with. And that part I’m obsessed with.”
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The early rounds of the BNP Paribas Open began Wednesday, with top seeds slated to start play Friday during the 12-day ATP and WTPA Master 1000 tournament.
A busy stretch of the tennis season reaches another gear at Indian Wells Tennis Garden, the second largest outdoor tennis stadium in the world.
While many consider it the “fifth Grand Slam” because of its elite player field, amenities and equal prize money for men and women, professionals acknowledge the tournament is part of a stressful stretch on the tennis calendar.
Indian Wells is followed by the Miami Open, another two-week Master 1000 tournament. The tour stops are known as the “Sunshine Double.”
Some players made the short trip from Indian Wells to Las Vegas this past weekend to participate in the MGM Grand Slam, an exhibition designed to help players ramp up for back-to-back tournaments.
American Reilly Opelka, a 6-foot–11 pro, said managing fatigue after a series of tournaments before hitting Indian Wells has altered his practice and play in exhibition matches, including a loss to 19-year-old Brazilian Joao Fonseca in Las Vegas.
“Normally in any kind of competition, you get excited and play with a pressure point … but you don’t feel this when you are practicing,” Opelka said.
“I was trying to feel like this a few days ago while practicing with … [Tommy Paul,] but instead we got tired and hungry. … That usually doesn’t happen. We just decided to stop and go to eat somewhere.”
Paul said despite the decision to cut practice short, he feels fresh for the upcoming events.
“I started the year pretty well and for Americans, we are excited for the Sunshine Double,” Paul said.
Casper Rudd lost to Opelka during the first round of the Las Vegas exhibition. The Norwegian also lost a week ago during the first round of the Acapulco Open, falling to Chinese qualifier Yibing Wu in straight sets.
Rudd said he felt “extremely tired” after the Australian Open in January.
Rancho Palo Verdes resident Taylor Fritz, ranked No. 7 in the world, said the best way to prepare yourself for grueling tour schedule is “putting [in] the time, work and repetition.”
“… Be there, be focused on the quality that you are doing,” said Fritz, a 28-year-old who won the Indian Wells title in 2022.
While some players are guarding against burnout, others struggled to even reach California. Some players who live in Dubai, including Russians Daniil Medvedev and Andrey Rublev, have to contend with closed airspace triggered by the U.S. and Israel bombing Iran.
The ATP announced Wednesday that, “the vast majority of players who were in Dubai have successfully departed today on selected flights.”
Sports
Law firm fighting for women’s sports in SCOTUS battle comments on ruling possibly impacting SJSU trans lawsuit
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A law firm leading the charge in the ongoing Supreme Court case over trans athletes in women’s sports has responded after a federal judge suggested the case’s ruling could impact a separate case involving a similar issue.
Colorado District Judge Kato Crews deferred ruling in motions to dismiss former San Jose State volleyball co-captain Brooke Slusser’s lawsuit against the California State University (CSU) system until after a ruling in the B.P.J. v. West Virginia Supreme Court case, which is expected to come in June.
Slusser filed the lawsuit against representatives of her school and the Mountain West Conference in fall 2024 after she allegedly was made to share bedrooms and changing spaces with trans teammate Blaire Fleming for a whole season without being informed that Fleming is a biological male.
Meanwhile, the B.P.J. case went to the Supreme Court after a trans teen sued West Virginia to block the state’s law that prevents males from competing in girls’ high school sports.
The Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) is the primary law firm defending West Virginia in that case at the Supreme Court, and has now responded to news that Slusser’s lawsuit could be affected by the SCOTUS ruling.
“We hope the ruling from the Supreme Court will affirm that Title IX was designed to guarantee equal opportunity for women, not to let male athletes displace women and girl in competition. It is crucial that sports be separated by sex for not only the equal opportunity of women but for safety and privacy. Title IX should protect women’s right to compete in their own sports. Allowing men to compete in the female category reverses 50 years of advancement for women,” ADF Vice President of Litigation Strategies Jonathan Scruggs said.
Slusser’s attorney, Bill Bock of the Independent Council on Women’s Sports, expects a Supreme Court ruling in favor of the legal defense representing West Virginia, thus helping his case.
(Left) Brooke Slusser (10) of the San Jose State Spartans serves the ball during the first set against the Air Force Falcons at Falcon Court at East Gym in Colorado Springs, Colorado, on Oct. 19, 2024. (Right) Blaire Fleming #3 of the San Jose State Spartans looks on during the third set against the Air Force Falcons at Falcon Court at East Gym on October 19, 2024 in Colorado Springs, Colorado. ( Andrew Wevers/Getty Images; Andrew Wevers/Getty Images)
“We’re looking forward to the case going forward,” Bock told Fox News Digital.
“I believe that the court is going to find that Title IX operates on the basis of biological sex, without regard to an assumed or professed gender, and so just like the congress and the members of congress that passed Title IX in 1972, allowed this specifically provided for in the regulations that there had to be separate men’s and women’s teams based on biological sex, I think the court is going to see that is the original meaning of the statute and apply it in that way, and I think it’s going to be a big win in women’s sports.”
The Supreme Court’s conservative majority appeared prepared to rule in favor of West Virginia after oral arguments on Jan. 13.
Slusser spoke on the steps of the Supreme Court on Jan. 13 while oral arguments took place inside, sharing her experience with a divided crowd of opposing protesters.
With Fleming on its roster, SJSU reached the 2024 conference final by virtue of a forfeit by Boise State in the semifinal round. SJSU lost in the final to Colorado State.
Slusser went on to develop an eating disorder due to the anxiety and trauma from the scandal and dropped out of her classes the following semester. The eating disorder became so severe, that Slusser said she lost her menstrual cycle for nine months. Her decision to drop her classes resulted in the loss of her scholarship, and her parents said they had to foot the bill out of pocket for an unfinished final semester of college.
President Donald Trump’s Department of Education determined in January that SJSU violated Title IX in its handling of the situation involving Fleming, and has given the university an ultimatum to agree to a series of resolutions or face a referral to the Department of Justice.
Among the department’s findings, it determined that a female athlete discovered that the trans student allegedly conspired to have a member of an opposing team spike her in the face during a match. ED claims that “SJSU did not investigate the conspiracy, but later subjected the female athlete to a Title IX complaint for ‘misgendering’ the male athlete in online videos and interviews.”
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SJSU trans player Blaire Fleming and teammate Brooke Slusser went to a magic show and had Thanksgiving together in Las Vegas despite an ongoing lawsuit over Fleming being transgender. (Thien-An Truong/San Jose State Athletics)
SJSU Athletic Director Jeff Konya told Fox News Digital in a July interview that he was satisfied with how the university handled the situation involving Fleming.
“I think everybody acted in the best possible way they could, given the circumstances,” Konya said.
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