Thom Brennaman returns to television as CW’s voice of college football

Thom Brennaman is about to return to television, nearly four years after making an insult that would have ended his career.

Brennaman has joined Nexstars CW as lead college football commentator. Andrew Marchand from The athlete This will be his first major television appearance since he used a homophobic slur on air while commentating on a Reds game in 2020. At the time, Brennaman was the longtime voice of the Reds and a well-known commentator for Fox Sports.

To make matters worse, Brennaman was ejected mid-game, but was still allowed to give a farewell speech in which he attempted to apologize. During his farewell speech, while the game was still in progress, he was forced to throw in a home run call in the middle of his apology – an incident that has been the subject of constant ridicule ever since.

Brennaman will primarily commentate on ACC football games for CW, according to Marchand, but will begin the network’s “Pac-2” coverage with Idaho State-Oregon State on Aug. 31. He told Marchand that he “has no words to describe” how grateful he is to CW for “taking the risk.”

During his time at Fox Sports, Brennaman was the lead announcer for the network’s college football coverage during the brief period it carried the Bowl Championship Series, which included commentating on three national championship games from 2007 to 2009. Notable games he commentated on during that time included Boise State’s upset win over Oklahoma in the 2008 Fiesta Bowl and Appalachian State’s upset win over Michigan earlier in the 2007 season. He was not a part of FOX’s college football team during its current formation.

Career-ending cases are rare but not unprecedented in the sports media. More common is that the offender is banned from the industry for a period of time and eventually returns in a reduced capacity. Marv Albert was accused of serious crimes in a 1997 national scandal and fired from all his jobs – including as a leading spokesman for the Michael Jordan-era of the NBA on NBC – but returned to television less than two years later, where he remained until his retirement in 2021.