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Sports announcers covering diffrent sports?

Lampley is also unique in that during what would be considered the "prime" of his sportscasting career, he also did news anchoring for a few years at KCBS-TV (late '80s-early '90s), alongside his then-wife Bree Walker and Keith Olbermann (who was KCBS's main sports anchor while Jim Hill was doing his five-year sabbatical over at KABC-TV).

Kinda along those same lines, KIRO-TV lead news anchor Steve Raible is also the radio voice of the Seattle Seahawks, although he was previously the color analyst prior to moving over to PxP.
 
ShawnHill1 said:
Lampley is also unique in that during what would be considered the "prime" of his sportscasting career, he also did news anchoring for a few years at KCBS-TV (late '80s-early '90s), alongside his then-wife Bree Walker and Keith Olbermann (who was KCBS's main sports anchor while Jim Hill was doing his five-year sabbatical over at KABC-TV).

Kinda along those same lines, KIRO-TV lead news anchor Steve Raible is also the radio voice of the Seattle Seahawks, although he was previously the color analyst prior to moving over to PxP.
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Didn't Frank Gifford do some non sports work for ABC? same thing with Al Michaels back then too?
 
danderson6500 said:
Didn't Frank Gifford do some non sports work for ABC? same thing with Al Michaels back then too?
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Not to my knowledge for either; Gifford may have done some filling-in for Regis back when Kathie Lee was the co-host, but outside of cameo roles on different sitcoms over the years, ol' Frankie Lee was strictly an ABC sportscaster.

As far as Michaels, one of his first sportscasting jobs in the mid-60s was as serving (albeit very briefly) as Chick Hearn's partner on local Laker broadcasts...in between that and the brief PxP gig on the NBA on ABC a dozen years ago, Michaels focused mostly on baseball and pro and college football, and whatever Olympics ABC (and now NBC) has the rights to.
 
Ir does make me wonder if Roone Arledge had still been running ABC Sports in 1986, would have he kept Gifford on PBP for MNF or would have he went with Michaels instead? what about who hosts "Wide World"? does he go with Lampley for that, or does he use Gifford?
 
danderson6500 said:
Ir does make me wonder if Roone Arledge had still been running ABC Sports in 1986, would have he kept Gifford on PBP for MNF or would have he went with Michaels instead? what about who hosts "Wide World"? does he go with Lampley for that, or does he use Gifford?
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"Wide World" was a fading brand by the mid-'80s. ESPN's rise, along with sports on WTBS and, later, regional networks, diminished the appeal of the weekly grab-bag of sports, except for title fights, which increasingly found their way to premium channels or pay per view.
 
LKellerIII said:
It was before my time in the Bay Area, but yes - (Fred) Van Amburg was the sports anchor - at KPIX, I think. He was also a DJ on 610/KFRC when it had an MOR format, before becoming a Bill Drake Top 30 station.
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I forgot to mention Spencer Christian the current KGO ABC7 News Weather talent was also a sports anchor at WABC7 in the 1970's when Bill Beutel, and Rogher Grimbsy were the lead anchors at WABC 7 Eyewitness News at the time. As Far as I know Spencher Christian was the fill in weather person for Storm Field during his stint in New York. In fact KGO-TV has actually hired people who did do sports segments at some point though at other places but managed to do well in other segments.

The Third person who do sports segments and host the news would be Larry Biel the current 4pm host of ABC7 News on KGO-TV. Larry Biel would sometimes take the 5,6,9 and 11pm host seats at ABC7 News when Dan Ashley is on assignment though. I know in the 6pm and 11pm editions Biel will do sports segments for the station.
 
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Jim McKay did a lot of the Indianapolis 500 coverage in the 70s when ABC had the same day delayed coverage. It put him alongside Sir Jackie Stewart and I believe Bobby Unser after he retired from the cockpit.
Al Michaels also covered the Indy beat for ABC...the qualification crash that killed Gordon Smiley reminded me of that after seeing it on YouTube.
IndyCar today is split between ABC and NBCSports and both nets got wise to get auto racing veterans for their coverage, but if you believed everybody that writes Robin Miller's Mailbox on racer.com the ABC crew is about as interesting as watching spackle dry...
 
danderson6500 said:
I remember Jackson doing game 6 of the 86 NLCS on ABC. I was surprised, since i thought they'd would have used Don Drysdale instead.
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Drysdale did pre and postgame interviews for the final game of the ALCS at Fenway Park, in his last assignment for ABC. He did p-x-p for the network's Sunday afternoon games, which aired until July, when 'Monday Night Baseball' began. (Michaels did the main Sunday game, usually with Jim Palmer, while Drysdale and Johnny Bench did the backup contests). Keith Jackson(usually working with McCarver) did the # 2 Monday night games. Bench took a week off in June(with Steve Busby filling in), and also worked one game with Michaels as the networks switched the announcer pairings. Drysdale worked the All-Star game as an interviewer, and did not resurface til the playoffs. Bench simply disappeared, ultimately going to CBS radio.

Although Michaels, Palmer and McCarver had done the '85 World Series together, ABC did not team them on a regular basis on 'MNB' until 1988(after three 'experiments' in 1987).
 
CTListener said:
"Wide World" was a fading brand by the mid-'80s. ESPN's rise, along with sports on WTBS and, later, regional networks, diminished the appeal of the weekly grab-bag of sports, except for title fights, which increasingly found their way to premium channels or pay per view.
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You could add horse racing. ABC's coverage of that was really good, back then; that along with figure skating, was the only things keeping Wide World afloat.
 
Dennis Swanson made the right decision to bring in Michaels for MNF; I'm not so sure if he would have stuck with Gifford even if he wanted to; Gifford's on air mistakes were becoming an issue with Swanson, but i odn't think Roone would have done that.
 
danderson6500 said:
You could add horse racing. ABC's coverage of that was really good, back then; that along with figure skating, was the only things keeping Wide World afloat.
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And both of those sports made their way to ESPN and regional networks as well.

Of course, horse racing is a shell of what it was in the '80s and earlier -- more exciting gambling options and the increasing perception by some vocal opponents that it's nothing more than legalized cruelty to animals (those damn snowflakes ... sorry, as a big fan and avid handicapper of thoroughbred racing, I can't stand it when people say that.) have reduced it to a struggling niche. It hardly appears on TV at all outside of the Triple Crown and Breeders' Cup races.
 
Actually, in the last couple of years, NBC and Fox have put more effort into covering some of bigger 'prep' races leading up to the Triple Crown and Breeders Cup. However, most of it has aired on their respective sports channels, not the 'big' networks. But at least it's out there.
 
I've read in the book about MNF that Chet Forte had issues with Gifford. I wonder if he was in the truck when Cosell did that Holmes-Cobb fight.
 
I remember James Brown doing some non sports stuff while at FOX, and he's filled in for Scott Pelley, so he has that experience.
Didn't Dick Enberg once do "Today" at one point with Deborah Norville, when Bryant Gumbel was on vacation? Costas did the same thing too at one point.
 
ShawnHill1 said:
Gifford may have done some filling-in for Regis back when Kathie Lee was the co-host, but outside of cameo roles on different sitcoms over the years, ol' Frankie Lee was strictly an ABC sportscaster.
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...Frank Gifford met Kathie Lee Johnson when both subbed on "Good Morning America." CBS had Vin Scully do NFL Football in the '70s, and assigned both Pat Summerall and Scully to golf and tennis coverage during the same stretch. I recall Summerall getting into an on-air argument with an Australian tennis pro doing colour commentary when he repeatedly referred to American football as "your sport"...
 
Ultimajock said:
...Frank Gifford met Kathie Lee Johnson when both subbed on "Good Morning America." CBS had Vin Scully do NFL Football in the '70s, and assigned both Pat Summerall and Scully to golf and tennis coverage during the same stretch. I recall Summerall getting into an on-air argument with an Australian tennis pro doing colour commentary when he repeatedly referred to American football as "your sport"...
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I remember Summerall doing the Us Open finals back in the day. There was one match that was so long, it wiped out the local and network news. It was Jimmy Connors playing in that match.
 
As far as Curt Gowdy, wasn't there a basketball game he did in 78 were he made a lot of mistakes? that's why he was dropped by NBC the next year.
 
danderson6500 said:
I remember Summerall doing the Us Open finals back in the day. There was one match that was so long, it wiped out the local and network news. It was Jimmy Connors playing in that match.
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In 1984 "Super Saturday" at the US open wiped out EVERYTHING on CBS scheduled for that day. They came on the air at 11:00 AM eastern time and were on the air for over 12 hours as both mens semifinal matches and the womens final all went the distance and were long matches.
 
danderson6500 said:
As far as Curt Gowdy, wasn't there a basketball game he did in 78 were he made a lot of mistakes? that's why he was dropped by NBC the next year.
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There was an NCAA tourney game in 1978 where he mispronounced a lot of players names and that was a factor in his eventual departure from NBC Sports.
 
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