Jim Nantz and the Super Bowl: Tales from a broadcasting legend


CBS broadcaster Jim Nantz shares a moment on stage with Kansas City tight end Travis Kelce after the Chiefs’ victory over the Baltimore Ravens in the AFC championship game on Jan. 28. If Nantz is semi-retired, it’s news to him. (Mark Goldman / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

Everything, everywhere, all at once.

That’s pretty much the job description of CBS announcer Jim Nantz, who will call Super Bowl LVIII from Las Vegas with color analyst Tony Romo at his side.

Even after retiring from his March Madness duties, Nantz still has a frenetic schedule in which NFL games roll right into the PGA Tour.

“People say, ‘Are you enjoying being semi-retired?’” said Nantz, 64. “I’m down to like 40 weeks of travel. … It’s not like I’m on a beach somewhere.”

He was decidedly not on the beach the day before the AFC championship game in Baltimore, even though millions of viewers surely thought he was. Instead, he was in a cramped trailer beneath M&T Bank Stadium remotely calling the Farmers Insurance Open in La Jolla.

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The tournament was adjusted so the final round was Saturday, ensuring it wouldn’t compete with the NFL’s conference championship games. And CBS didn’t try to hide the fact that Nantz wasn’t on site, several times referencing the fact he was in Baltimore.

Still, in the week since then, Nantz has been asked dozens of times how he possibly could have gotten from San Diego to Baltimore so quickly to call that Kansas City Chiefs win.

“It’s so much easier to talk when you’re in the arena,” conceded Nantz, who is in his third year of calling the Torrey Pines tournament from a remote locale. “But we get through it. … I’m seeing all these wonderful shots of the Pacific and the coastline and I’m in a trailer in the bowels of a stadium. So it’s a little bit of make-believe that you’re there watching the hang gliders take off and the surf’s…


Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/jim-nantz-super-bowl-tales-120010399.html

Author : LA Times

Publish date : 2024-02-05 12:00:10

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