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Mike Tirico will call Sunday’s Super Bowl 2026, his first doing play-by-play in the Big Game, on NBC and Peacock. Following the game and through Feb. 22, he will host the Olympics for the fifth time, anchoring NBC’s prime-time coverage of the Milan Winter Games. Tirico will become the only person to do Super Bowl play-by-play and host Olympics coverage in the same year.
Q: Have you solicited any advice for calling your first Super Bowl?
A: The one who I know I’m gonna talk to for sure is Kevin Burkhardt. Because Kevin’s the one who most recently went through that first experience, and we have been in touch with each other by text the last three years or so and see each other at NFL meetings. I’m such a fan of Kevin and his story. There was a long stretch where the only three people doing the Super Bowl were Al Michaels, Jim Nance and Joe Buck. His first one was only three years ago, so it’s fresh in his mind. … Look, it’s a football game I’ve watched the last eight or nine start to finish over the last few months, so I know what the game is like, but the day is different, and I’d love to take the advice of somebody who I admire just to hear, “Hey, here’s what I learned, here’s what you’re probably gonna experience.”
Q: What do you hope viewers say about you when Super Bowl 2026 is over?
A: I hope they say that the broadcast was good. I don’t want them to know about me. This game, like every game, is not about me. Nobody has ever watched a game for an announcer. An announcer may increase your level of enjoyment, but other than our family and close loved ones, nobody’s watching the game because of who’s calling the game. So I just want to do the proper job of documenting the game, informing and entertaining the audience, and you’re on to your next thing in your life. It’s the greatest single sporting day in America, people are gathered around their TV. Nobody’s gathering to watch me and Cris [Collinsworth], they’re gathering to enjoy the game. So hopefully you do the right job the right way, and we’re on to Monday morning.
Q: What will be your Super Bowl Sunday routine?
A: It’ll be a little different ’cause I’m gonna wake up in the middle of the night in California and watch Lindsay Vonn in the women’s downhill at the Olympics, 1) because that’s the biggest story of the Olympics that day if there’s no cancellation because of snow, and 2) because if she wins, that’s gonna be one of the great stories we’ve ever seen — 41 years old, knee replacement, back competing in the downhill and doing well. If she wins, that’ll be a story we’ll talk about forever in the Olympic world. … So, after getting back to sleep, I plan on getting up normal time and doing my normal routine. The game kicks off at 3:25 local time, that’s five hours earlier than we usually have games kick off on Sunday nights. So the day will fly by, I’m sure, but especially knowing on the back end of that we have the Olympics to host on the field that night.
Q: Pregame butterflies, or adrenaline?
A: Adrenaline, yes. Nerves, no. I’ve done Super Bowl halftime with 110 million people watching. Much like the players just looking forward to that first hit, I’m looking forward to that time I say, “second-and-5.” (laugh). It’s gonna be like the other 500 or so football games I’ve called in my life. It just has a few more people watching.
Q: What are your thoughts on Sam Darnold?
A: First play as a Jet [was a] pick-six in Detroit on a Monday night. You just go, “Oh my gosh, that’s the Jets!” Good for him for finding his place. Four teams in four years, bouncing around, I’m so happy for him, personally, that he’s getting this moment. He’s earned it.
Q: Drake Maye?
A: Right out of a screenwriter’s pen. Married to his middle school sweetheart, from a family of athletes and champions, and he has succeeded and thrived in a place where when you go in the building, there’s a statue of the guy who just finished being the best quarterback of our lifetime right out there in front of you. To thrive in the shadow of greatness is hard. He has done it smoothly and effortlessly.
Q: Mike Vrabel?
A: Imposing, and impressive. An imposing physical stature in any room he walks in. And impressive in not just the way he coaches a team, but also the depth and knowledge he has all across the field. He is like the prototypical coach for the 2026 NFL, and I’m still trying to figure out why they let him out of the building in Tennessee.
Q: Mike Macdonald?
A: Got to know him in Baltimore. Was with him at the owners meetings right after he had been named head coach, and nobody was talking to him, he was just standing by himself a little bit with his wife. It was really neat to talk to him and watch how he has led this team. I love the fact that a lot of people nationally don’t know him, but he has a determination and a connection with his players th atis just understated, but it’s all business. I’m so happy that a coach in his second year is proving that he can come in and have this kind of impact.
Q: What do you think of the matchup?
A: The Seahawks are worthy favorites. They have played a harder schedule to get their 14 wins. There’s something about this New England team that they’re in every game. I think what will be most important for New England is to try to find sustained offense, which they really have struggled to do in the three playoff games. Don’t let Seattle’s defense dominate the tempo and tone of the game, which they have done to people over this year.
Q: Will there be an X-factor?
A: I think it’s the ability of New England’s defense to shut down Kenneth Walker, and disrupt the timing with Darnold.
Q: What do you think of Levi’s Stadium?
A: Wish it was closer to San Francisco for the game. Don’t like the fact that it’s so separated from where the hubbub is gonna be. But when I walked back in there this year, I really appreciated the view. The booth is good, the hotel’s good, and it’s gonna be one of my favorite stadiums for the rest of my life ’cause it’s my first Super Bowl stadium.
Q: What do you remember about the Malcolm Butler interception?
A: I think I was with everyone in that just stunned disbelief that the ball was not being run in the hands of Marshawn Lynch at that time. And just the shot of Tom Brady on the sideline, even he couldn’t believe [it]. That look on Brady’s face, a guy that had been there and won it so many times, of pure disbelief, was just one of the great shots in Super Bowl history.
Q: What is your single favorite Super Bowl?
A: Take away the ones that I’ve worked, because those are personal favorites just to be there. You know what? I’m gonna lie, I’m gonna give you that one. It sounds stupid: Super Bowl 34 in Atlanta between the Rams and Tennessee Titans because I was fortunate enough to be the person doing trophy presentation, and I never imagined or dreamed that I’d be the person there as the Super Bowl trophy was handed to Dick Vermeil and Kurt Warner. There was no way that was on the bingo card of life for me growing up as a kid in Queens. That’s the one NFL picture I have sitting in my house. That was the first time that ESPN produced the pregame show for ABC. Chris Berman hosted the pregame and halftime, I was a part of that show, and then I got the chance to do the trophy presentation for Super Bowl 34 and 37, 40 and 56. That was the first one that to me was personal, so that sticks really close to my heart.
Q: Best Super Bowl you’ve ever seen?
A: The [first] Kansas City-Philadelphia Super Bowl [to cap the 2022 season] … from a game quality, that might be the best one. That one just was edge of your seat the whole game.
Q: Giants Super Bowls.
A: The one in Indianapolis [following the 2011 season], our kids were young enough, and we brought the whole family to that game. I just watched that as a fan. I always had a warm spot in my heart for the Giants because of family that rooted for the Giants as we were growing up. To know that people who you grew up with were so happy to see the Giants do that was great. And it gave you hope that one day the Jets would feel that, too … but we know reality (laugh).
Q: Describe your on-air style.
A: Hopefully friendly … hopefully welcoming. … I try to be that conduit for people who aren’t spending their whole week at a game, just to let you know what matters and what’s important. I’d say that it’s hopefully talking with, not to, the audience.
Q: What drives you now, and what drove you as a younger man?
A: I think driving me was just trying to make it. First-generation college student out of my family, so I was blessed by the support of a lot of people and to have this opportunity. I think I’ve always been driven just to succeed professionally, and I have enjoyed the climb. I enjoyed all the roles I did at ESPN and all the opportunities I’ve gotten along the way. So the climb has been fun. I am someone who believes that the climb is never done. … It’s still hard to believe that I’m getting to call a Super Bowl.
Q: Biggest obstacle you had to overcome?
A: I’d say the obstacle as I got through this was trying to prove that I could be a play-by-play guy while I was doing “SportsCenter.” And a career in studio [would have] been great, I would have loved it, and I did. I get to do both now — with the Olympic job and the other things that come across like the Kentucky Derby, let’s say, or other events like that. But I really, in my heart of hearts, wanted to be a play-by-play announcer. I love that challenge still to this day, and you had to prove yourself that you could break out and do that, and be seen as such.
Q: Your favorite calls?
A: Strangely enough, golf doesn’t have a lot of great calls necessarily, doesn’t lend it to that, but Jean van de Velde at the [1999] British Open, as he hit a ball that bounced off the grandstands and went into the water and it’s in the burn, that was the most memorable 72nd holes in the history of major championship golf. It was only my third year of doing golf, I don’t think I realized then how monumental that moment was. … Dameon Lillard with a [2014] playoff winner for Portland when they hadn’t been through the first round in 14 years, that was pretty memorable for me. And then without a doubt the last game of the regular season [this season] in Pittsburgh with Baltimore will go right to the top of the list because I didn’t see that coming.
Q: Favorite calls from other announcers or broadcasters?
A: I still love Jack Buck’s call of the [Kirk] Gibson home run [in the 1998 World Series]. Actually, both calls of the Gibson home run, [Vin] Scully and [Jack] Buck. Al [Michaels’] “Do you believe in miracles?” was just timeless and was pitch perfect from the 1980 U. S. Olympic hockey team.
Q: Most electric event you covered?
A: Tiger [Woods] winning the Masters the last time in 2019. I actually called that on radio. To be at Augusta, that scene around the 18th green, while it’s a good-sized crowd, it’s a small crowd relative to big moments in sports. … Tiger winning there was one of the moments I’ll never, ever forget, and to be 15 feet off the green with the spot where we’re calling it was just unforgettable. I can still see that scene today.
Q: Golf is much different than calling hockey.
A: Those are the two diametric opposites. I’m a believer in that the surroundings that you’re in tell you how to act and how to project and what level to reach. I learned that after 9/11, I did a football game at Michigan Stadium, my whole family lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan, now. I had no idea how do we react? How excited do you get? And it kind of dawned on me on the way over to the stadium, 100,000 people are gonna tell you what energy level to have, right? If they’re cheering, then it’s OK to cheer, it’s OK to join their level of enthusiasm. That sticks with me for a long, long time. That game sticks with me, and the game that I did after Hurricane Katrina and the Superdome reopened in New Orleans in 2006. This more than just sports, that the connection to real life is very real in these games.
Q The Olympics.
A: I love that there’s somebody probably 50 miles from us, and somebody 5,000 miles from us, and right now they’re training to win the same competition. I love the world truly comes together. And I love that in PyeongChang in 2018, I was standing in the stadium and watched North Korea and South Korea, two countries that barely speak and you cannot cross the border, I watched them come in as one unified team. The Olympics is not perfect, it still has flaws in many ways, but there’s nothing that brings the world together like the Olympics, and to be the prime-time host for the fifth time now, to do a job that two people who I idolized in Jim McKay and Bob Costas are the only two who’ve done it more often than I have, I still can’t believe that that’s the case and I cherish every opportunity to be on hosting the Olympics.
Q: The Kentucky Derby.
A: They all have a mint julep in their hands and they’re betting. If we’re doing a 5 ¹/₂-hour TV show that’s one of the hardest shows (chuckle) that I work on every year. The Derby’s such a cool spectacle. I’m glad that people in my family taught me how to read the Racing Form. It helped me (laugh) get ready to do that job.
Q: The Ryder Cup.
A: The Ryder Cup was a great event. I don’t like where it is right now. I think it’s gotten progressively uglier, and I hope that they can pull it back to where it needs to be where it’s a great passionate competition but it doesn’t cross the line, and this year it did, unfortunately.
Q: Favorite interview subjects?
A: Tiger. Always great to talk to. In a 1-on-1 interview, was always really insightful. … Peyton Manning was always a treat to interview. Production meetings with Peyton Manning was just the most enriching, fulfilling experience because he knew exactly how to answer each question for each person in the room. … And Kobe [Bryant]. Sitting down doing interviews with Kobe was just really cool. There was just something about the way he had a command of subject and a command of the room that was different than others.
Q: Cris Collinsworth.
A: The best partner you could have next to you. Cares about people on the show. Smartest guy in the room without acting it. Curiosity off the charts. Willing to learn. You couldn’t ask for somebody better to be next to for your first opportunity to do the biggest thing in your business and have Cris by your side.
Q: Al Michaels.
A: Gold standard. No one has ever been better calling football, and has enjoyed a career that will be unmatched by anyone who does this going forward.
Q: Jon Gruden.
A: Great partner. Was the person who provided me a PhD in football. I understood the game so much more because of Jon, he opened so many doors, and was so generous to everybody on our team. Everybody who worked on that Monday night team enjoyed Jon being around.
Q: Hubie Brown.
A: Walking into a room with Hubie was like walking into the room with the president. People loved, revered, respected Hubie. I spent 10 years in the basketball arena next to Hubie, and it is something that I cherish, and every phone call with him is special. He has always felt like family to me since we started working together, and still does to this day.
Q: Ian Eagle.
A: One of my best friends. Proud to say that he interned for me when I had my first job. And he’s the second-best Eagle broadcaster that I know. I say that lovingly.
Q: Al Roker.
A: There’s not a person who generates more joy with the people around him than Al. To fill in on “The Today Show” last year for a week, and sit next to Al Roker was one of the coolest experiences I’ve ever had in my career. He is a gem, a treasure, and I love the fact I can call him a friend.
Q: Chris Berman.
A: Defined a generation of sportscasting. Brought an energy to highlights and a fun level to sports that no one else has equaled. There were many people who tried, but none did it the way Boomer did.
Q: Jim Nantz.
A: Nice to be a friend of the man who says, “Hello, friends.” He’s the most sincere and thoughtful person you could ever be around, and from the time I was working at a CBS affiliate in Syracuse and interviewing the national voice when he’d come to town to call a game until now when we are peers and have a very similar job, he has never changed.
Q: Jim Boeheim.
A: So thankful that he never crushed me in a press conference. Without his ability to coach and create that great atmosphere, I don’t know if I would love basketball or even sports as much as I do. We had more great days and nights because of Syracuse basketball, and he was as big a reason as anyone.
Q: Bill Belichick.
A: Super Bowl 40, co-hosting the second set on the ABC pregame show, my analyst was Bill Belichick. One of my favorite days in football was I went up to Foxborough and met with him, and he laid out the game plan for the Seahawks’ Super Bowl against the Steelers. And in the last second of the pregame that he was on, Bill told us what to look for. He said when the Steelers get around midfield and have a first down, that’s when they like to run their trick plays. In that game, the Steelers ran a trick play to Antwaan Randle-El for a touchdown. I think he is brilliant, the Hall of Fame snub is so wrong.
Q: Aaron Rodgers.
A: Such an interesting … character. Incredible player, but maybe as smart as anyone you ever talk to. Has the answers for everything, in a good way. I think would make a tremendous broadcaster if he ever chose to go down that road. I’ve loved my time around him.
Q: Joe Namath.
A: So, Namath was the idol to my family. In a family of Jets fans, mention Joe Willie and everybody just smiled. The chances to get to interview him or be stood next to him or take pictures with him still is pretty cool. It’s just one of those that you go, “Man, this is not something that I ever thought would happen in my life.” Coolest guy in every room he walks in. Joe Namath and Clyde.
Q: John Harbaugh.
A: The only reason I’m disappointed that he’s back in coaching is because he would be as good a broadcaster as anyone. Think he’s a great communicator. Perfect hire for the Giants. They need an adult in the room who’s been there and done it, who’s gonna know what winning football needs to look like and is not gonna be figuring things out in the process. At this time, he’s the right guy for this organization.
Q: Michael Jordan.
A: Still as smooth as ever. Sitting across from him and talking basketball is a treat. He still loves the game as much as any athlete I’ve ever spoken to. I love the fact that we had the chance to just discuss his views on where basketball is right now, and let people hear from him where the game is and where it’s going, and the concerns he has about where the game’s going.
Q: Broadcasters and announcers you admired growing up?
A: Marv [Albert], first and foremost, I think. If you listened to Mike Breen or Ian Eagle or myself or many, many others, we all have traits of Marv. He is the man who launched so many careers without us even knowing him till later on. … The best complete sportscaster, called everything, inspiration for generations of people to follow. … Bob Murphy. I loved to hear Happy Recap growing up as a kid. … Len Berman, who had such a great way of doing local sports and highlights, and Costas. I loved listening to John Sterling the radio talk show host, and dealing with callers, just jabbing away at callers and him jabbing back at them and yelling at people. That was sports talk radio before anybody even knew what sports talk radio was. All of those great voices in New York were very influential to a kid without cable TV and AM radio in New York.
Q: What was your boyhood dream?
A: My boyhood dream was to be the voice of the Rangers. In sixth grade, at P.S. 79 in Queens, we were asked to do, “Where do you think you’ll be on December 31st of 1999?” And at that point I was 12.
Q: Did you have a boyhood idol?
A: Not really, no. … I wanted to be like all the sportscasters, I really did. At a very early point in Bayside High School in my sophomore year when my fledgling baseball career turned into being a defensive replacement and pinch-runner, in fall ball before the team was even made in the spring, the writing was on the wall that my athletic career was gonna have to follow either commentating or sports medicine, it was not gonna be as a player.
Q: How did the commentating part begin?
A: I don’t know why, I always had a love for sportscasting. If you ask my mom, who’s still alive and lives out on Long Island, she would tell you that I pretended to be a sportscaster as a little kid. My grandfather — I was raised by a single mom, my grandparents lived upstairs from us. My grandfather’s second job was working as one of the security people at Shea Stadium, he would bring home media guides for me and I’d love getting a National League skinny media guide and reading through it. And when I had the chance to go to work with him when I was a little bit older, I didn’t care about meeting the baseball players, I wanted to meet the broadcasters. So from a young age, this was always what I wanted to do.
Q: Did you practice at home?
A: I’m sure I called more than a few games to myself or over the TV, as a bunch of kids did growing up who do this now. There’s not some tape sitting around of me calling a game as a 9- or a 10-year-old, but yeah, I played pretend sportscaster often enough, for sure.
Q: What was it like growing up a Jets fan?
A: Well, it was tormenting, and I’m glad that like childhood allergies, I’ve outgrown that. I loved the Jets, I loved growing up going to Shea Stadium and sitting in the upper deck. I loved walking across the bridge and Roosevelt Avenue with hot chocolate and my Uncle Frank and going to games as I was growing up. That’s where I fell in love with sports, and the NFL. And I cried the day Richard Todd threw A.J. Duhe three balls [Mud Bowl]. That was the low point of my fandom in sports until Indiana beat Syracuse in the college basketball championship in 1987.
Q: Who were your favorite Jets players?
A: Jerome Barkum, Freeman McNeil. I always believed that Johnny “Lam” Jones was gonna turn out to be a good pick. It never worked out that way. And I thought Wesley Walker was just so smooth and good and always deserved better.
Q: Syracuse’s WAER radio?
A: Greatest college radio station ever. Period. No argument. With all due respect to WFUV and my Fordham friends. Look at the legacy of the number of people from Marty Glickman and Dick Clark all the way through, no one can match the people who come from there.
Q: Bob Costas was your first guest on ESPN Radio.
A: It was surreal because I won the first Bob Costas Scholarship at Syracuse, and to interview, get to know and then become friends with a person you look up to is all you could ever ask for.
Q: Three dinner guests?
A: Ronald Reagan, [Barack] Obama, Arnold Palmer.
Q: Favorite singers/entertainers?
A: [Frank] Sinatra and [Bruce] Springsteen.
Q: Favorite meal?
A: Chicken parm because it measures the quality of an Italian restaurant — you get sauce, cheese, pasta and how they prepare their meats or poultry.
Q: Your No. 1 chicken parm place?
A: Quality Italian in the city.
Q: As a New Yorker, which team will win the next championship: Knicks, Mets, Giants or Jets?
A: (Laugh) Oh my God! The Knicks have the pieces. … I’ll go Knicks. But think that the Mets spend so much at some point it’s gonna work out. But I’ll go Knicks.
Q: How often are you recognized?
A: It’s funny, after an Olympics, or a stint on “The Today Show,” I find that you get recognized a bit more. It’s still odd, but it’s part of the job. It’s not a part that I seek, but it’s a part that I understand.
Q: What are you most proud of about what you’ve accomplished?
A: I’ve worked hard to earn the opportunities to succeed, and earn the trust of the people who have given me those opportunities and not let them down. At the end of the day, our job is not that hard, but I do appreciate the fact that hard work can still get you places, and there was no silver spoon in this, so to enjoy these years of these great events, date back to calling semipro football and high school football on local TV in Syracuse in the late ’80s, and to have a chance to do things like the Super Bowl and the Olympics in the same day — they were so out of my mind that they weren’t even part of a dream. Like your dream stopped way before you thought about this. So to be here and doing it now, it’s still surreal. But it’s pretty fun.
Q: Is there anyone I didn’t mention that you would want to mention?
A: My hero’s my mom. My mom who watches everything I do. She sacrificed a lot when I was a kid to give me the chance to go to college, chase my dream, raised me as a single mom back in the ’70s. She is my hero, and I’m just super glad that she gets a chance to see me live out my professional dream at the Super Bowl.
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