Greg Gumbel, who over the course of a 50-year career in broadcasting was one of the best-known voices in the industry, has died at age 78.
Gumbel died of cancer, his family said in a statement released through his longtime employer CBS. He had not been seen on-air in more than a year, having retired from CBS NFL coverage prior to the 2023 season and missing this past year’s NCAA men’s basketball tournament. His CBS colleague Seth Davis indicated Friday that Gumbel had fallen ill late last year.
Few broadcasters in sports television history have a career resume to match that of Gumbel, who called two Super Bowl games for CBS, hosted the network’s primetime coverage of the record-setting 1994 Winter Olympics, and hosted or called any number of other marquee properties — from the NBA and Major League Baseball to “The NFL Today” and “SportsCenter” — in a career that spanned CBS, NBC and ESPN.
The role with which he was most associated was as longtime studio host of CBS Sports’ NCAA men’s basketball tournament coverage. In the days when tournament games were carried regionally on CBS alone, it was Gumbel who would cut in from New York and take viewers from their game to a thrilling finish elsewhere. His role diminished somewhat when Turner Sports entered the tournament picture in 2011, but he continued to split hosting duties with TNT’s Ernie Johnson.
Though he is most identified with CBS, Gumbel was an ESPN SportsCenter anchor, having joined the network in 1981. After CBS lost NFL rights in 1994, he left to join NBC, where he would host the network’s NFL studio coverage and call NBA games — working on the network’s “B” team alongside Bill Walton and Steve “Snapper” Jones, who have also since passed.
Gumbel was at times overshadowed by his younger brother Bryant, whose prominent roles in TV news made him one of the most recognizable broadcasters in the entire country — sports or otherwise. He did not carry the same profile as other Super Bowl-level voices. Nonetheless, he was as familiar a face in sports television as there has ever been.
