Chris Fowler's Monday Night Football future (2024)

Chris Fowler is a pragmatic sports broadcaster. If you speak to him at length — which I did last week — he will tell you in no uncertain terms how much he loves his current assignments. Who could blame him? His portfolio includes calling ESPN’s biggest college football games as well as the top events in tennis.

“Tennis and college football are my two favorite sports,” Fowler said. “We have championship events in both, and I am ridiculously grateful for that. I am not looking to change. I don’t consider it a promotion to go from what I do now to Monday Night Football.”

This is notable because of the near-universal praise Fowler and Kirk Herbstreit received for calling the Steelers’ win over the Giants on Sept. 14. The longtime college football pairing shifting to the NFL was one of the most interesting sports broadcasting stories of the fall. ESPN executives were overjoyed by their performance — as well as the external reaction. Here’s what I wrote at the time about their broadcast:

Broadcasting is always subjective:

To me: Chris Fowler and Kirk Herbstreit are calling an excellent game. Why do I say that?

1. Exceptionally prepared for a league they normally don't call.
2. Easy chemistry. Notice they don't step on each other.
3. Energy and enthusiasm.

— Richard Deitsch (@richarddeitsch) September 15, 2020

ESPN management seriously considered going with Fowler and Herbstreit in the Monday Night Football booth in the event the college football season was canceled due to the coronavirus. Now comes the interesting question: What is Fowler’s interest long-term in doing the NFL? That’s not just a Monday Night Football question because ESPN will undoubtedly try to add another package of NFL games when the next round of NFL media rights get doled out.

“It interests me in that I love football and that I always have,” Fowler said. “I have preferred college over the NFL throughout my career as I have much more experience doing it. But I have always been a fan of the NFL, and it is football at the highest level. There are a lot of things about it that intrigue me. But that doesn’t mean I am going to take over Monday Night Football. Because I didn’t. I am very happy doing what I am doing. I am living the dream. The NFL is a massively important property to my company – the most important. So the landscape ahead may change and there may be opportunities and I would never close myself to any opportunity, especially one that is really rewarding and fun. We had a taste of it. I expected it to be a one-off. We had a chance to do a second game (Patriots-Broncos), but that didn’t happen.”

What Fowler understands is that if ESPN adds more NFL inventory, the company is going to need more NFL broadcasters. I know there are executives at ESPN who would love to see Fowler and Herbstreit become the lead NFL team but the best of all worlds for ESPN would be adding more NFL games, seeing Steve Levy, Louis Riddick and Brian Griese solidify as the main MNF booth, keeping Fowler and Herbstreit on the college football lead, and then assigning Fowler and Herbstreit a smaller NFL package in addition to their college assignments.

“It’s not about what the current NFL TV landscape is — it is about where it is going and what might be out there in the future,” Fowler said. “I hate to put a number on it but if I did 10 more years of college football and never did an NFL game, I would be thrilled. I hope we keep the (CFB) playoffs. I am never going to shut myself off to a potential opportunity, but I am really thrilled doing what I am doing now.”

Here are nine additional media items/thoughts as we hit near the halfway mark in the NFL season:

2. Through Week 7, the audience for all NFL television windows — national and regional — averaged out to 13.9 million viewers. That represents a 14 percent year-over-year decline compared to the same period in 2019. Those numbers are per Sportico’s Anthony Crupi, one of foremost sports viewership analysts in America.

3. How is each NFL-airing network doing?

• Let’s start with the most-watched window on television. The late Sunday afternoon ET national window, shared by Fox and CBS, through seven broadcasts is averaging 22.0 million viewers, per Crupi. That is down 3 percent year over year versus 22.6 million in 2019. Crupi surmised the reason for that small decline was CBS losing the Patriots-Chiefs on Oct. 4 for the substitute of Bills-Raiders.

• Fox is averaging 23.6 million viewers for its “America’s Game of the Week,” franchise, down 1 percent versus 2019. “They’re backloaded with Cowboys games, and while the casual fan may quail at the prospect of Dallas appearing in seven more national broadcasts before the season is out, the sheer dispiriting awfulness of the entire NFC East may (counterintuitively enough) keep the diehards tuned in,” Crupi said.

• CBS is averaging 16.2 million for all of its games, down 2 percent versus 16.5 million in 2019. Fox’s national and regional windows are averaging 17 million viewers, down 8 percent versus 18.5 million one year ago. When you add up all the Sunday afternoon windows, Crupi said the combined CBS/Fox games is 16.6 million viewers across 21 windows, down five percent year-over-year vs 17.5 million viewers in 2019.

• ESPN is holding up well. Through eight telecasts, Monday Night Football has averaged 11.2 million viewers, down two percent versus the year-ago 11.4 million viewers.

• The Fox/NFL Network Thursday Night Football simulcasts are averaging 12.2 million viewers over four games, down 19 percent from the year-ago 15.0 million viewers.

4. Sunday Night Football is where the NFL has seen its most significant drop. The NBC package is averaging 16.5 million in 2020, down 17 percent from 19.9 million viewers, per Crupi. Can that turn around? We’ll get a sense this week regarding the popularity of the Cowboys in a down year. Sunday Night Football (which can flex games) has two more appearances left from the undefeated Steelers, Chiefs and Packers.

5. Here is something you likely did not know if you watched the Chargers-Broncos game Sunday on CBS. The game was produced by Kimani Morales and directed by Mark Grant. It is by all accounts the first time that an NFL game telecast has been led by an African-American producer and director. That it took as long as it did for an NFL game certainly says something — and Grant is keenly aware of that.

“I was afraid that my career would end before I had the chance to work with a person of color sitting next to me,” Grant said. “I have been privileged to cover many great sporting events in my time at CBS and have sat next to many talented producers. However when my career is over, I want to be remembered as someone who helped open the doors for others who look like me. Kimani and I working side-by-side is just the beginning. Hopefully one day people of color leading a production becomes so common that no one even notices.

“I want to thank CBS for allowing us to lay the foundation for change. It has always been my goal at CBS to work with a person who looks like me on the front bench. I think that it sends a message to younger people who may want to follow our paths that it is possible to make it to the front bench with hard work, and lots of patience. CBS management is very aware of the lack of African-American producers and directors and is aggressively making a push to give deserving people of color a chance.”

Grant has worked for CBS Sports for 22 years after a decade at ESPN. He and Morales have worked as producer-director together many times in other capacities including last week for a Louisiana-Lafayette-UAB college football game on CBS Sports Network as well as on college basketball games.

Morales started at CBS in 2000. He has worked as a researcher, broadcast associate and associate director and has produced college basketball and college football for the last four years. He had been Gene Steratore’s producer every weekend for SEC games and on the NFL. The Chargers-Broncos game was his first assignment as a lead NFL producer.

“I’d go with appreciative, bittersweet and hopeful as my main thoughts,” Morales said. “I’m appreciative because there was no guarantee this day was coming. Without Mark it doesn’t happen. Without belief from management it doesn’t happen. Without great co-workers who pass down knowledge and support it doesn’t happen. But it’s also bittersweet because it is crazy how few Black producers and directors exist when the main sports we cover have so many Black athletes and fans. So how do we change that? Answering that question is my mindset right now because if we all operate the same as it was not much will improve. I am hopeful since I’ve seen the Black community at CBS Sports unite to support one another and actively work with management on planning out steps for short term, long term and systemic change. The goal is to have a day like today become ordinary, and I think with everyone pulling in the same direction it can happen.”

6. Each time I’ve watched an NFL game involving Jonathan Vilma in 2020 —he’s in his first year with Fox Sports as an NFL analyst — I’ve liked what I heard. He’s prepared, he sees the whole field, and he explains things to me as a viewer in a process I can understand. Impressively, Vilma did something no other rookie analyst had ever done. In his first three game assignments, Vilma worked with three different play-by-play broadcasters (Dick Stockton, Brandon Gaudin and Kenny Albert). He has since settled into a partnership with Albert, and they are a quality listen.

7. I asked Fowler what the experience was like calling the NFL versus other assignments. He had just come off two weeks at the U.S. Open including a five-set men’s final the day before calling the Giants-Steelers. “It was fun,” Fowler said. “I mean it was a challenge because it came off the back of 14 days in the USTA bubble, and we called two really compelling U.S. Open finals. I come off the final U.S. Open match, and I’m watching the Zoom call replays of our calls with Ben Roethlisberger, Mike Tomlin and the Steelers. I didn’t get to participate in those live because they were right during the tennis finals. I crammed all Sunday night and all day Monday for my first-ever NFL game, Thankfully, our production team was together from ABC Saturday Night and Kirk and I have a lot of years together. But the rhythm of the game is different. It was actually kind of neat to call Ben Roethlisberger throwing a touchdown pass because some of the characters in the game – Saquon Barkley, JuJu Smith-Schuster, Dexter Lawrence – we were very familiar with them. But Ben I didn’t really call a lot of MAC (Mid-American Conference) games when he was in college. So it was cool to call a Roethlisberger touchdown pass. When you do these NFL games you get to talk about Drew Brees and Tom Brady and Rob Gronkowski and these 12-to-15-year veterans of football. That’s kind of fun. That’s not an experience you get in college with a revolving door of personnel. I love a challenge, and it was extremely challenging circ*mstances to make our debut. People seemed to enjoy it. It wasn’t an A+ broadcast, but I had managed expectations going in. I just wanted to enjoy the experience and not sweat the implications.”

8. Fox’s Joe Buck has had a crazy schedule since Oct. 18, including calling the Packers-Buccaneers, Chiefs-Bills, six World Series games, the Saints-Panthers game last Thursday night and the Bears-Saints on Sunday. I texted Buck on Sunday to ask how he felt after the stretch. Said Buck: “I’m good. Not tired at all.” Buck said he’s averaged about eight hours of sleep per night during the stretch. As a fellow father of young twins, sleep on the road does sound dreamy.

9. I like when NFL pregame shows take chances creatively, and that’s what Fox NFL Sunday did this weekend by mocking the political attack ads that are no doubt airing in your area. Fox used Jay Glazer and Michael Strahan as competing candidates to induct Jimmy Johnson into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Here’s the piece:

It's a fierce campaign between @michaelstrahan and @JayGlazer on who will induct @JimmyJohnson into the Hall of Fame 👀 pic.twitter.com/fdAo97aGDy

— FOX Sports: NFL (@NFLonFOX) November 1, 2020

“The idea for attack ads involving Jay Glazer and Michael Strahan came from director of photography John Slagle, who has a great sense of comedy working on (Rob) Riggle’s Picks, Jay Leno and ‘In Living Color,’” Fox NFL Sunday executive producer Bill Richards said. “Producer Bernie Kim wrote out the piece, and comedy producer Jason Palmer put on the finishing touches on it. Bernie pitched Michael, Jay (Glazer) and Jimmy on the general idea but didn’t tell them what was going in the piece. So the guys put a lot of trust in us that they’d ‘approve the message’ in the spot without actually seeing the script!”

10. If you’re looking for what will be the most-viewed NFL game for the rest of the regular season outside of the Thanksgiving Day games (Ravens-Steelers on Thanksgiving night on NBC will obviously draw well), I’d go with the Chiefs at Buccaneers on Sunday, Nov. 29. That game airs on CBS at 4:25 p.m. ET — the late afternoon Sunday NFL window is the most-watched window in television — and features two of the league’s megastars (Tom Brady and Patrick Mahomes) and two excellent teams. Rams-49ers starts at 4 p.m. ET that day so it will be interesting to see how much viewership that game draws. If the Bucs-Chiefs are close late as the hour nears 8 p.m. ET, I think 25 million viewers is very possible.

The Athletic Ink

1. The World Series between the Dodgers and Rays averaged 9.785 million viewers over six games on FOX. That is the least-watched World Series on record.

The previous lows:

12.7 million viewers (Giants-Tigers, 2012)

13.6 million viewers (Phillies-Rays, 2008)

13.8 million viewers Giants-Royals, 2014)

What does this mean? Both Crupi of Sportico and Bill Shea of The Athleticwrote excellent pieces examining the numbers.

My take: As I’ve tried to examine in multiple pieces, the massive declines for the World Series are in sync with other jewel sporting events dropping precipitously in 2020 including the Stanley Cup Finals, NBA Finals, U.S. Open golf, MLB postseason and pretty much everything else. I don’t think it will have any lasting carryover in the post-pandemic world. Crupi did have one note that MLB executives should be alarmed by — at least to some degree. Fox’s drew a 2.5 rating for adults 18-49, which is around 3.25 million adults. Wrote Crupi: “That marked a 26% decline from last year’s 3.4 average, or 4.4 million members of the under-50 set. The median age of the World Series viewer was 56.2 years old, or a decade grayer than the fans who tuned in for the NBA Finals on ABC (46.1).”

2. Episode 118 of the Sports Media Podcast with Richard Deitsch features three guests. First up is ESPN’s Fowler, the lead college football and tennis voice for ESPN. He is followed by Jordan Cornette and Shae Peppler Cornette, who co-host ESPN Radio’s GameDay each Sunday during football season from 1-5 p.m. ET. It is the first time a married couple has co-hosted an ESPN Radio show. The final guest is the longtime New York Times sportswriter Harvey Araton. He is the author of “Our Last Season: A Writer, a Fan, a Friendship,” which chronicles his bond with Michelle Musler, a longtime season-ticket holder for the Knicks.

In this podcast, Fowler discusses his new podcast, “Fowler, Who You Got?”; why he likes long-form interviews; trying to book guests away from ESPN; doing a non-sports podcast; the adjustments he has made regarding calling college football this year; the lack of a crowd; calling an NFL game this year with Herbstreit; his interests in doing the NFL long-term; his approach to social justice and politics publicly and much more. Cornetteand Peppler discuss co-hosting ESPN Radio’s GameDay each Sunday; what it means to them to be the first married couple to co-host an ESPN Radio show; how they describe their on-air chemistry and show; how their professional partnership come together; moving from successful jobs in Chicago and navigating the ESPN ecosystem; how they decide who leads each show; how much sports is a part of their day-to-day relationship; whether they hope to continue to work together, and much more.

Araton discusses the role of the general sports columnist in 2020 and whether the position is endangered; opinion writing versus reporting; why he wrote his book and the impact personally of his relationship with Musler; how COVID-19 might change the dynamic of the courtside fan; selling a book during a pandemic, and much more.

You can subscribe to this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher and more.

3. Last week’s viewership (Oct. 24) for college football pregame shows:

College GameDay: (10 a.m. – noon ET): 1,524,000 viewers

Big Noon Kickoff (10 a.m. – 12:05 p.m. ET): 946,000 viewers

Strong numbers for both. The Ohio State-Nebraska game on Fox on Oct. 24 drew 6.175 million viewers, which is a very good number giving this climate. Ohio State football continues to be viewership gold for any network that airs its games.

3a. Stadium college basketball analyst Jeff Goodman has been thinking about forming a college basketball podcast network for more than a year but he became serious about it when Rob Dauster, a longtime NBC Sports staffer who specialized in college basketball, became available to be part of the project.

“Rob and I have hosted pods for a while now, so I think we know what works in this space but we wanted to go a different route,” Goodman said. “Instead of just having the typical national coverage, we wanted to dedicate content to the fan bases that crave high-level and in-depth analysis of their teams. That’s why we targeted former players for team-specific podcasts. College basketball fans want to know and experience what it’s like to live the day-to-day of their favorite team, and no one can explain that better than those who actually did it.”

Dauster and Goodman have formed the Field of 68 Media Network, which features former college basketball stars and sports media members hosting pods. The network’s national podcasts include the “Goodman and Hummel Podcast,” featuring Goodman and former Purdue star Robbie Hummel; “Inside the Mind of Miles” with former Nebraska head coach Tim Miles; and the ”The Rebound Podcast” featuring Dauster. Goodman said 12 podcasts will initially debut prior to the start of the college basketball season, centering on some of the nation’s most prominent programs including Kentucky, North Carolina, Michigan State and Gonzaga. Goodman said his network recently reached a deal with a prominent former women’s player to host a national women’s basketball podcast.

“Rob’s put in a ton of time into this project and is incredible when it comes to technology, producing and organizing,” Goodman said. “His vision for this is it being far more than just straight audio pods. We’re livestreaming most of them on Twitter and other social media platforms. We don’t want to expand the Field of 68 too quickly. We want to make sure the quality of the product is at the highest level, and then we’ll add as we see fit. But this will ultimately be the place to go to get all your college hoops info under one umbrella.”

3b. Quite a busy Sunday for broadcaster Roberto Abramowitz:

It looks like I’ll be busy on Sunday (to say nothing about all the prep I’ve done today).
A football/soccer doubleheader.
• 1pm calling #NYJvsKC on @WADO1280 and the @NYjets app from Florham Park.
• 7pm broadcasting #NYCvRBNY from Yankee Stadium on https://t.co/A1nhiBrf5p

— Roberto Abramowitz (@RobAbramowitz) November 1, 2020

4. Non-sports piece

• When To Expect Election Results In Every State: A complete guide to poll closing times, vote counting and races to watch on election night 2020. By Nathaniel Rakich and Elena Mejía of FiveThirtyEight.

• America is facing one of the deepest divides in our history — and, no matter who wins the election, a difficult path forward. By Gene Weingarten of The Washington Post.

• Via Doug Bock Clark for the New York Times: Arrested, Tortured, Imprisoned: The U.S. Contractors Abandoned in Kuwait.

• Data Disappeared. By Samanth Subramanian, Michael Hobbes, Jonathan Cohn, Kate Sheppard, Alex Kaufman, Delphine D’Amora, Chris D’Angelo, Emily Peck of HuffPost Highline.

• Doctors Begin to Crack Covid’s Mysterious Long-Term Effects. By Sarah Toy, Sumathi Reddy and Daniela Hernandez of the Wall Street Journal.

• Via Michael Hall of Texas Monthly: DNA evidence proved Lydell Grant’s innocence. So why won’t the state’s highest criminal court exonerate him?

• Bonded and Unbound: Sean Connery, 1930-2020. By Matt Zoller Seitz of RogerEbert.com.

• The New York Times obit on Connery.

• Vote Your Conscience By Jay Nordlinger of The National Review.

• Great work by Erik Wemple on a piece with a lot of problems. The Atlantic’s troubled niche-sports story.

• And also this by Wemple: New York Times, CNN sullied by ‘Anonymous’ charade.

• The Day After Election Day. By Ron Suskind.

• Monarch butterflies face extinction. A group of ultra runners chased them the length of a continent to warn us. By Annelise Jolley for The Sunday Long Read.

• Via Foreign Policy’s Issac Stone Fish. Wilbur Ross Remained on Chinese Joint Venture Board While Running U.S.-China Trade War.

Sports pieces of note:

• Philip Rivers’ football life. By Zak Keefer of The Athletic.

• Inside the political donation history of wealthy sports owners. By ESPN and FiveThirtyEight.

• Remarkable stuff from NBA player Kyle Korver:

Last night Kyle Korver explained the decision for the Milwaukee Bucks to stick together during an intense locker room meeting inside the NBA Bubble, and how it helped bring about change. pic.twitter.com/1wPi4brcyN

— Creighton Bluejays (@gocreighton) October 27, 2020

• Via ESPN’s Mark Kriegel: A valet girl and a Philadelphia hustler unbreakable bond.

• “I went to the desert to learn about a town that now only exists in memory. The high school football team played behind barbed wire. Guards pointed guns inward, not out. A story of fear, football and one of America’s most unforgivable sins.” By Christopher Kamrani of The Athletic.

• Check out this College GameDay feature narrated by Tom Rinaldi and produced by Jon Fish on Michigan defensive end Kwity Paye.

5. Reposting: This is one of the most powerful and honest things I have read in 2020. No overselling. It will make you think about your own place in the universe.

(Top photo of Herbstreit and Fowler: Mike Zarrilli/Getty Images)