Chris Fowler | |
---|---|
Born | August 23, 1962 |
Alma mater | University of Colorado Boulder |
Years active | 1982–present |
Spouse | Jennifer Dempster |
Sports commentary career | |
Genre | Play-by-play |
Sport(s) | College football Tennis NFL Soccer |
Employer | ESPN |
Chris Fowler (born August 23, 1962) [1] [2] is an American sports broadcaster for ESPN, who serves as the play-by-play announcer for Saturday Night Football on ABC and ESPN's tennis coverage. He is also known for his work on College GameDay , which he hosted between 1990 and 2014, and for college football.
In 2014, he replaced Brent Musburger as the play-by-play announcer for Saturday Night Football on ABC, having him on ESPN's top announcing team alongside fellow College Gameday's Kirk Herbstreit; this meant he would also be selected to announce one of the two College Football Playoff semifinal games and the College Football Playoff National Championship. [3]
Fowler grew up in Rockford, Illinois [4] and State College, Pennsylvania where his father, Knox, was a theater professor at Penn State University. [5] When he was a teenager, his family moved back to Colorado and he graduated from General William J. Palmer High School in Colorado Springs in 1980. [6]
Fowler graduated from the University of Colorado in 1985 with a Bachelor of Science degree.[ citation needed ] While a student, Fowler served as a producer and co-host for a weekly magazine program aired over a cable television system in Boulder, Colorado from 1983 to 1985.[ citation needed ] He also spent two years as sports director at KAIR-AM, the university's radio station. From 1982 to 1984, he covered high school sports for the Rocky Mountain News .[ citation needed ]
Prior to joining ESPN, Fowler spent nearly two years at KCNC-TV, then the NBC affiliate in Denver, as a production assistant, a producer/writer and as a sports reporter. In 1984, he worked for several months at KMGH-TV in the same city as an intern in the sports department.
Fowler joined ESPN in July 1986 as the host/reporter of Scholastic Sports America, a stint which lasted two years. In 1988, he began serving as a college football sideline reporter for two seasons. While on the college football beat, Fowler conducted an exclusive interview with former star University of Oklahoma quarterback Charles Thompson, who was in prison at the time on drug charges.
He began as host of the College GameDay football road show in 1990 and expanded to ESPN's other Saturday college football segments in 1991.
After Charles Woodson won the 1997 Heisman Trophy over Tennessee's Peyton Manning, Tennessee fans blamed ESPN and in particular, Fowler, who had emceed the award ceremony and handed the trophy to Woodson. Fowler received abuse from Tennessee fans (and he described the reaction as "trailer park frenzy" on a radio show), and GameDay avoided shooting on the Tennessee campus for several years that followed. [7]
In February 2015, ESPN announced Rece Davis will take over for Fowler as host of GameDay, but that Fowler will continue his play-by-play role on Saturday Night Football on ABC and College Football Playoff games, and as host of the annual Heisman Trophy presentations. [8]
Until 2006, he was also the lead studio host of College Basketball on ESPN . Fowler has also worked with ESPN's Summer X Games from 1995 to 2000 and the Winter X Games from 1998 to 2000 as well as horse racing broadcasts, including the Breeders Cup World Thoroughbred Championship on ESPN. In addition, he serves as the head play-by-play for tennis tournaments broadcast on ESPN, including Wimbledon, Australian Open, French Open and for the US Open being broadcast for the first year in 2009 on ESPN. In 2010, he anchored, along with Mike Tirico, ESPN's and ABC's month-long coverage of the 2010 FIFA World Cup. In 2020, Fowler announced the first game of the Monday Night Football Kickoff Week doubleheader alongside Kirk Herbstreit. [9] They later called the early game of ESPN's Week 18 Saturday doubleheader a year later. After Herbstreit signed with Prime Video to call Thursday Night Football, Fowler was replaced by Steve Levy on the #2 team for the 2022 season, but was re-inserted into that role a year later. He now works with Louis Riddick, Dan Orlovsky, and Laura Rutledge on weeks when ESPN has two games. As part of his NFL assignments, Fowler also calls the Super Bowl for ESPN Australia.
He is also the host of the ESPN Classic show SportsCentury .
He was the host of the Seattle Kraken's expansion draft coverage which was the first ESPN hockey event with the NHL since 2004. During the telecast he would make an regrettable error in calling the Carolina Hurricanes the “Carolina Panthers”. This led to both teams Twitter accounts switching logos mocking him.
Along with fellow College Gameday hosts Lee Corso and Desmond Howard, in 2007 Fowler broadcast College Gameday from Williams College for its homecoming game against Amherst College, the first and only time College Gameday has covered a Division III game. [10] Fowler has called the experience, and Williams' tradition of "The Walk" up Spring Street following a victory over Amherst, "one of the best traditions in college football." Fowler joined the Williams football players in St. Pierre barbershop following the game to celebrate Williams' victory. [11]
On February 22, 2024, Fowler announced on X that he will be a play-by-play voice on the upcoming EA Sports College Football 25, set for a summer 2024 release. [12]
Fowler is married to former fitness model/instructor Jennifer Dempster, who appeared on ESPN in the 1990s on the show BodyShaping. [13]
Monday Night Football is the branding used for broadcasts of National Football League (NFL) games that air on Monday nights. It originally ran on ABC from 1970 to 2005, before moving exclusively to sister network ESPN from 2006 to 2019. While still airing on ESPN, MNF returned to ABC in 2020 beginning with select ESPN simulcasts, later expanding to select ABC exclusive telecasts in 2022, and since 2023 ABC has aired the bulk of the games in simulcast with ESPN. In addition, ESPN2 features the Manningcast alternate telecast of select games, which was established in 2020, and since 2021, ESPN+ has served as the U.S. streaming home of MNF.
Kirk Edward Herbstreit is an American sportscaster and former college football player. He serves as an analyst for ESPN's College GameDay, a television program covering college football, and provides color commentary on college football games on ESPN and ABC and Thursday night NFL games on Prime Video. For his TV work, Herbstreit has won five Sports Emmy Awards in various categories. He appeared annually as a commentator in EA Sports' NCAA Football video game series, including after a ten-year hiatus.
Brent Woody Musburger is an American sportscaster, currently the lead broadcaster and managing editor at Vegas Stats and Information Network (VSiN).
College GameDay is a pre-game show broadcast by ESPN as part of the network's coverage of college football, broadcast on Saturday mornings during the college football season. In its current form, the program is typically broadcast from the campus of the team hosting a featured game being played that day and features news and analysis of the day's upcoming games.
ESPN on ABC is the branding used for sports event and documentary programming televised by ABC in the United States. Officially, the broadcast network retains its own sports division; however, in 2006, ABC's sports division was merged into ESPN Inc., which is the parent subsidiary of the cable sports network ESPN that is majority owned by ABC's corporate parent, The Walt Disney Company, in partnership with Hearst Communications.
William Laurece Davis is an American sports television journalist for ESPN/ABC. Davis works as an anchor on SportsCenter and serves as host of various other programs on the network, including College GameDay football road show and basketball show. Since 2021, he has been ESPN's lead host for international soccer events.
ESPN Radio College Gameday is a talk radio show on ESPN Radio covering the day's college football games.
Saturday Night Football is an American weekly presentation of prime time broadcasts of National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) college football games that are produced by ESPN, and televised on ABC. Games are presented each Saturday evening starting at 7:30 p.m. Eastern Time/6:30 p.m. Central Time during the college football regular season, which has been the case since 2017. The ESPN on ABC Saturday Night Football coverage began in 2006, as both ESPN and ABC are owned by The Walt Disney Company. It is ESPN's biggest game of the week, and in most cases, the city and/or campus of that night's game is where that day's ESPN College GameDay had originated.
College GameDay is an ESPN program that covers college basketball and is a spin-off of the successful college football version. Since debuting on January 22, 2005, it airs on ESPN Saturdays in the conference play section of the college basketball season at 11 A.M. ET at a different game site each week. Before 2015, the college basketball version always appeared at the ESPN Saturday Primetime game location. Since the 2014–2015 season, the show has appeared at a top game of the week, similar to the college football version. The program has also appeared at the site of the Final Four.
Samantha Ponder is an American sportscaster who most recently hosted Sunday NFL Countdown on ESPN. Prior to hosting Sunday NFL Countdown, Ponder worked as a reporter and host for ESPN college football and as a basketball sideline reporter. Ponder replaced Erin Andrews on College GameDay Saturdays at 10 AM ET on ESPN, as well as co-host of the Saturday 9 AM ET edition on ESPNU. In addition to her duties on College Gameday, Ponder had been the regular sideline reporter for ESPN's Thursday Night College Football with Rece Davis, Jesse Palmer, and David Pollack from August 2012 until 2014. Ponder also appeared on the ESPN-owned Texas-oriented regional network Longhorn Network.
The 2014 Florida State Seminoles football team, variously Florida State or FSU, represented Florida State University in the sport of American football during the 2014 NCAA Division I FBS college football season. Florida State competed in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). The Seminoles were led by fifth-year head coach Jimbo Fisher and played their home games at Bobby Bowden Field at Doak Campbell Stadium in Tallahassee, Florida. They were members of the Atlantic Coast Conference, playing in the Atlantic Division. It was the Seminoles' 23rd season as a member of the ACC and its 10th in the ACC Atlantic Division.
Suzette Maria Taylor is an American sportscaster for NBC Sports. She has worked for ESPN and the SEC Network. She has covered college football, college volleyball, National Basketball Association (NBA), National Football League (NFL), and men's and women's college basketball.
The 2015 Clemson Tigers football team represented Clemson University in the 2015 NCAA Division I FBS football season. The Tigers were led by head coach Dabo Swinney in his seventh full year and eighth overall since taking over midway through 2008 season. They played their home games at Memorial Stadium, also known as "Death Valley." Clemson competed in the Atlantic Division of the Atlantic Coast Conference. On December 5, 2015, the Tigers won the 2015 ACC Championship Game by defeating the North Carolina Tar Heels, 45–37, capping their first undefeated regular season since winning the national title in 1981. Ranked No. 1 throughout the College Football Playoff (CFP) rankings, Clemson defeated the No. 4 Oklahoma Sooners, 37–17, in the 2015 Orange Bowl to advance to the College Football Playoff National Championship. Despite the success of the season, and entering the championship game with an undefeated record (14–0), they lost to the No. 2 Alabama Crimson Tide (13–1) in the national championship, 45–40. Both Clemson and Alabama finished the season 14–1.
Big Noon Kickoff is an American college football studio show broadcast by Fox, and simulcast on sister network Fox Sports 1 (FS1). Premiering on August 31, 2019, it serves as the pre-game show for Fox College Football, and in particular, Big Noon Saturday—the network's weekly 12:00 p.m ET/9:00 a.m PT kickoff window.
The 2020 Miami Hurricanes football team represented the University of Miami during the 2020 NCAA Division I FBS football season. The Hurricanes were led by second-year head coach Manny Diaz and played their home games at Hard Rock Stadium, competing as a member of the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC).
The 2021 Georgia Bulldogs football team represented the University of Georgia in the 2021 NCAA Division I FBS football season. The Bulldogs played their home games at Sanford Stadium in Athens, Georgia, and competed in the Eastern Division of the Southeastern Conference (SEC). They were led by sixth-year head coach Kirby Smart. They finished the season with 14 wins and 1 loss. Georgia won the National Championship and was the consensus No. 1 team at the conclusion of the season. The 14 games won by the Bulldogs also set the record for the most wins in a single season in school history until it was broken the following season, where Georgia finished with a 15–0 record.
From 2014 to 2022, CBS, NBC, and Fox, as well as cable television's ESPN, paid a combined total of US$20.4 billion will pay $39.6 billion for exactly the same broadcast rights. The NFL thus holds broadcast contracts with four companies that control a combined vast majority of the country's television product. League-owned NFL Network, on cable television, also broadcasts a selected number of games nationally. In 2017, the NFL games attracted the top three rates for a 30-second advertisement: $699,602 for NBC Sunday Night Football, $550,709 for Thursday Night Football (NBC), and $549,791 for Thursday Night Football (CBS).
The 2022 USC Trojans football team represented the University of Southern California as a member of the Pac-12 Conference during the 2022 NCAA Division I FBS football season. Led by first-year head coach Lincoln Riley, the Trojans played their home games at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in Los Angeles. They finished the season 11–3, 8–1 in Pac-12 play to earn a trip to the Pac-12 championship game. Ranked No. 4 in the College Football Playoff, they lost to Utah in the conference championship game eliminating them from national championship consideration. They received a bid to the Cotton Bowl Classic where they lost to No. 16-ranked Tulane. Trojans quarterback Caleb Williams was awarded the Heisman Trophy for his performances during the season.
The 2024 Tennessee Volunteers football team represents the University of Tennessee in the Southeastern Conference (SEC) during the 2024 NCAA Division I FBS football season. The Volunteers head coach is Josh Heupel, who is in his fourth year. The team plays its home games at Neyland Stadium in Knoxville, Tennessee.
The 52-year-old sports broadcaster claims Rockford as his hometown...