Thom Brennaman lands big new broadcasting gig

Some four years after we last heard him on a national network, Thom Brennaman is officially back.

Andrew Marchand of The Athletic reported on Sunday that the former Cincinnati Reds broadcaster Brennaman has landed a big new gig. He has been hired by The CW as their lead voice for nationally-televised college football games.

“There are no words to describe how grateful I am that they’re rolling the dice,” Brennaman said of The CW. “They don’t have to do this.”

Marchand notes that Brennaman will debut for The CW on Aug. 31 during a game between Oregon State and Idaho State. While he will be kicking things off as part of the network’s Pac-12 package, Brennaman is mainly going to be assigned to ACC games, Marchand adds.

The 60-year-old Brennaman has nearly four decades of sportscasting experience. He called football, baseball, and basketball for FOX Sports from 1994-2020 and also served as the TV play-by-play announcer for multiple MLB teams over the years. That included the Cincinnati Reds, whom Brennaman’s father Marty used to be a sportscaster for as well.

But Brennaman was exiled in 2020 after being caught on a hot mic using a homophobic slur. Though Brennaman issued a public apology on FOX Sports Ohio (which Nick Castellanos infamously homered in the middle of), he was suspended indefinitely by the network and eventually resigned from his position. Brennaman was promptly replaced from his national TV work on FOX Sports as well.

Since then, Brennaman has done smaller-time broadcasting work as a play-by-play announcer for the Roberto Clemente League in Puerto Rico as well as for local high school sports streaming service Chatterbox Sports. Now Brennaman is landing back on his feet in a major way, returning to the national airwaves beginning with the 2024 college football season.