The Detroit Tigers announced Thursday that nationally renowned broadcaster Jason Benetti will be taking over for Matt Shepard as the team's play-by-play television announcer starting in the 2023-24 season.
Benetti arrives in Detroit as one of the most famous broadcasters in the current sports media landscape, covering the MLB, college football and college basketball. He previously worked for NBC Sports Chicago as the White Sox TV broadcaster while also doing national MLB coverage on Peacock and college sports and MLB coverage for Fox Sports.
The impossible task
He also formed an infamous partnership with legendary NBA star Bill Walton calling college basketball games, often cracking fans up with their contrasting styles. Walton even joined Benetti to call a White Sox game once.
FULL STORY:Jason Benetti signs multi-year contract with Detroit Tigers as TV play-by-play broadcaster
He will continue to work his national broadcasting jobs while working for the Tigers and will cover a minimum of 127 Detroit baseball games next summer. When a conflict comes up, longtime radio broadcaster Dan Dickerson will switch over to handle the duties in front of the camera.
Benetti's Background
Benetti, an Illinois native, graduated from Syracuse with a broadcasting degree in 2005. He is seen as an inspirational figure in the sports media world for his major success despite being diagnosed with cerebral palsy as a child.
The physical disability prevented him from playing sports, but he never lost interest. He was a member of his school's marching band before switching to the booth after having trouble balancing a tuba, according to an ESPN interview from 2014. The move was natural for Benetti, who parlayed his ability with a microphone into a career.
He began working in various media roles after leaving Syracuse while he was attending Wake Forest to get a law degree. He got his start at Fox Sports 1, Westwood One, the Syracuse Chiefs (Washington Nationals Triple-A affiliate) and Time Warner Cable Sports among other roles while he was in college.
HOW IT STARTED:Matt Shepard won't return as Tigers play-by-play broadcaster on Bally Sports Detroit
In 2011, Benetti got his big break when an ESPN producer offered him to announce a preseason game between Syracuse and Albany. He moved to a consistent role calling a few college basketball games on the ESPN3 website, before graduating to TV on ESPNU and ESPN2 later in the year. In 2013, he joined the college football team as a play-by-play announcer.
Welcome to the big leagues
He entered the baseball world full-time in 2016 when he joined NBC Sports Chicago to replace Ken Harrelson as the White Sox play-by-play announcer for a select number of games. Benetti's role grew each year before he eventually took over completely in 2019 when Harrelson retired.
In 2021, NBC announced that Benetti would be handling the network's coverage of baseball in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. A year later, his job with the company expanded again to include the new MLB Sunday Leadoff games that would air on Peacock starting in 2022. Benetti has covered a few Tigers games in recent years thanks to the Peacock games, along with the usual series against the White Sox.
Benetti switched from NBC to Fox in August 2022 to do play-by-play for college football and basketball, national MLB games and even two NFL games to close last year's regular season. He continued to work for NBC Sports Chicago at the same time — a similar role to what he will be doing with the Tigers, where he'll call a minimum of 127 games on Bally Sports Detroit.
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November 10, 2023 at 12:16AM
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Who is Jason Benetti? Meet the Detroit Tigers' new TV broadcaster - Detroit Free Press
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