The Sports Lifetime Achievement Award is a special award given away each year at the Sports Emmy Awards, given to a notable American sportscaster or sports TV executive. It was first given away in 1989. It is always announced days before the nominations are.
Thomas William Heinsohn was an American professional basketball player and coach. He was associated with the Boston Celtics of the National Basketball Association (NBA) for six decades as a player, coach and broadcaster. He played for the Celtics from 1956 to 1965, and also coached the team from 1969 to 1978. He spent over 30 years as the color commentator for the Celtics' local broadcasts alongside play-by-play commentator Mike Gorman. He is regarded as one of the most iconic Celtics figures in the franchise's history, known during his lifetime for his charisma and loyalty to the team and its traditions. From this, he earned the nickname "Mr. Celtic".
Bryant Charles Gumbel is an American television journalist and sportscaster, best known for his 15 years as co-host of NBC's Today. He is the younger brother of sportscaster Greg Gumbel. From 1995 to 2023, he hosted HBO's acclaimed investigative series Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel, which has been rated as "flat out TV's best sports program" by the Los Angeles Times. It won a Peabody Award in 2012.
Hubert "Hubie" Jude Brown is an American retired basketball coach and player and active television analyst. Brown is a two-time NBA Coach of the Year, the honors separated by 26 years. Brown was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2005.
CBS Sports is the sports broadcasting division of American television network CBS. Its headquarters are in the CBS Building on W 52nd Street in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, with programs produced out of Studios 43 and 44 of the CBS Broadcast Center on W 57th Street.
Brent Woody Musburger is an American sportscaster, currently the lead broadcaster and managing editor at Vegas Stats and Information Network (VSiN).
James William Nantz III is an American sportscaster who has worked on telecasts of the National Football League (NFL), NCAA Division I men's basketball, the NBA, and the PGA Tour for CBS Sports since the 1980s. He has anchored CBS's coverage of the Masters Tournament since 1989 and been the lead play-by-play announcer on CBS's NFL coverage since 2004. He was also the lead broadcaster for the NCAA men's basketball tournament from 1990 to 2023.
Merton Laverne Lundquist Jr. is a retired American sportscaster known for his long career with CBS Sports.
Bradley Ray Nessler is an American sportscaster, who currently calls college football and college basketball games for CBS Sports.
The 1985 NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament involved 64 schools playing in single-elimination play to determine the national champion of men's NCAA Division I college basketball. This was the first year the field was expanded to 64 teams, from 53 in the previous year's tournament. It began on March 14, 1985, and ended with the championship game on April 1 in Lexington, Kentucky. A total of 63 games were played.
The National Sports Media Association (NSMA), formerly the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association, is an organization of sports media members in the United States, and constitutes the American chapter of the International Sports Press Association (AIPS).
College Football on CBS Sports is the blanket title used for broadcasts of college football games that are produced by CBS Sports, for CBS and CBS Sports Network.
The 28th Sports Emmy Awards honoring American sports coverage in 2006 were presented on April 30, 2007 at Frederick P. Rose Hall in the Jazz at Lincoln Center, New York City. The nominees were announced on March 22.
Don McGuire was an American television sports executive. He was executive producer at Turner Sports' TBS and TNT, Raycom Sports, and The Golf Channel. He won multiple Emmy, Cine and CableAce awards and was executive producer for the startup of Raycom Sports in 1983. He also oversaw the fast growth of Ted Turner's sports TV operations from 1987 to 1995 as Executive Producer and then Senior VP. He served as executive producer at the Golf Channel from 1999 to 2000 and was senior vice president for programming and production at the Golf Channel when the channel became the exclusive cable outlet for the LPGA and PGA Tour.
Chester Robert Simmons was a television executive. He worked at ABC Sports, NBC Sports and ESPN, and was the first Commissioner of the USFL. From 1957 to 1964, he helped build ABC Sports into a leader in sports programming and was a key part of the development of Wide World of Sports. He joined NBC Sports in 1964, where he stayed for 15 years becoming the first President in 1977. At NBC, he pioneered instant replay and coverage of the Olympics and NCAA Men's Basketball Final Four. In 1979, he left NBC to join the soon to launch ESPN becoming its second President. At ESPN, he oversaw the launch of the network, the development of SportsCenter, the first broadcasts of the NFL Draft, coverage of the early rounds of the NCAA Men's Basketball Final Four and the development of Chris Berman, Bob Ley, George Grande, Greg Gumbel and Dick Vitale. In 1982, he became the first Commissioner of the United States Football League and led it through three championships and players including Herschel Walker, Jim Kelly, Reggie White, Steve Young and Anthony Carter.
As the national broadcaster of the NBA, CBS aired NBA games from the 1973–74 until the 1989–90 season, during which the early 1980s is notoriously known as the tape delay playoff era.
On March 12, 1990, at the NFL's annual meeting in Orlando, Florida, the league new ratified four-year television agreements for the 1990 to 1993 seasons involving ABC, CBS, NBC, ESPN and TNT. The contracts totaled US$3.6 billion, the largest package in television history. This contract saw each network having rights to one Super Bowl telecast as part of the package. The fourth Super Bowl (XXVIII) was up for a separate sealed bid. NBC won the bid, and since they were last in the rotation for Super Bowl coverage in the regular contract, ended up with two straight Super Bowls. CBS is the only other network to televise two Super Bowls in a row. NBC, which had held XXVII, was the only network to bid on XXVIII. Previously, the league alternated the Super Bowl broadcast among its broadcast network partners, except for Super Bowl I; CBS broadcast Super Bowl II, then the league rotated the broadcast between CBS and NBC until 1985 when ABC entered the rotation when that network broadcast Super Bowl XIX.
The Lifetime Achievement Emmys are a class of Emmy Awards presented in recognition of the significant lifetime achievements of an individual in the American television industry. They are analogous to other awards based on cumulative achievement given out in the United States in the context of numerous career fields.
The 44th Sports Emmy Awards were presented by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS), honoring the best in American sports television coverage in 2022. The ceremony took place in-person at the Jazz at Lincoln Center's Frederick P. Rose Hall in New York City.