NFL on Westwood One Sports

• 1. Introduction

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  NFL on Westwood One Sports is the name that American radio listeners hear when they tune in for live national NFL coverage, but the story behind that brand stretches back through multiple corporate owners, a decades-long partnership with CBS, and a broadcasting lineage that some trace all the way to 1935. At its peak, Westwood One holds the rights to virtually every premium moment on the NFL calendar: Sunday nights, Monday nights, Thursday nights, Thanksgiving, Christmas Day, all international games, and the Super Bowl itself. How did one radio network come to occupy that much real estate on the professional football schedule? And how did it survive a parent company bankruptcy, a near-departure by the NFL, and a global pandemic that scrambled its entire broadcast roster?

• 2. A History Rooted in CBS

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  George A. Richards, owner of radio station WJR and the Detroit Lions, made a decision in 1935 that set the CBS network on a path toward NFL dominance. Richards switched WJR's affiliation from NBC Blue to CBS, and appears to have carried Lions games with him in the move. That connection between CBS and NFL radio never fully broke. CBS's parent company owned Westwood One for approximately ten years, from 1998 through 2008, and retained control over NFL production even after Westwood One changed hands. The arrangement continued through the end of the 2011 NFL season under a new owner.

  The musical signature of that partnership was particularly concrete. From 2003 until the close of the 2012 season, Westwood One's NFL broadcasts used "Posthumus Zone" by E.S. Posthumus as their theme, the same piece heard on NFL on CBS television coverage. For 2013, the network commissioned a new score written specifically for radio. One holiday tradition did survive the transition: for Christmas Day games, Westwood One has used Darlene Love's "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)" for its opening introductions.

  Personnel flowed freely between the two units as well. Play-by-play voices including Don Criqui, Dick Enberg, and Ian Eagle called Sunday afternoon television games early in the season before shifting to Thursday and Saturday night radio duty. Boomer Esiason, an analyst on the CBS studio show The NFL Today, simultaneously called color commentary on Westwood One's Monday Night Football. Lesley Visser, who had become the first female sportscaster to preside over the Vince Lombardi Trophy presentation at Super Bowl XXVI for CBS television in 1992, joined the Westwood One Monday night team in 2001 and became the first woman to serve as an analyst on an NFL broadcast.

• 3. Corporate Turbulence

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  CBS Corporation sold Westwood One to The Gores Group in 2007. The Gores Group then sold the network to Oaktree Capital Management in 2011 under the Dial Global brand, which discontinued the Westwood One name during its ownership. That same year, a predecessor entity, Jones Radio Networks, had already come under the Dial Global banner after an acquisition spree that began in 2008, ending Jones's long run of carrying Sunday afternoon games via the Sports USA Radio Network.

  In December 2008, reports surfaced that the NFL was weighing a move to a rival service, with ESPN Radio, Sports USA, and Sporting News Radio named as potential alternatives. A possible split of primetime, Thanksgiving, and postseason rights between two or more networks was also floated. On the 12th of March 2009, Westwood One announced a two-year extension with the league, and on the 22nd of December 2010, the NFL confirmed the contract had been extended through 2014.

  The situation grew more complicated in August 2013, just weeks before the season began, when Cumulus Media agreed to acquire Dial Global's network assets. Townsquare Media, which had shared a corporate structure with Dial Global, received 53 Cumulus stations as part of the deal. The consolidation brought CBS Sports' radio operations back under the same management as the NFL package. A further extension through 2017 followed in 2014.

  Cumulus Media filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in November 2017 and began canceling national broadcast contracts in January 2018. A long-unpaid debt to the Buffalo Bills and local sports affiliations with teams including the Seattle Seahawks were among the obligations Cumulus sought to shed. No new contract extension had been announced as of May 2018, though the network confirmed it would continue carrying the NFL in 2021. In March 2022, Westwood One confirmed a multi-year extension that added coverage of the NFL draft, NFL Honors, and the draft combine, and opened the door to alternative audio broadcasts and distribution through affiliates' digital platforms and the NFL's own app.

• 4. Monday Night at the Center

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  Jack Buck and former Kansas City Chiefs coach Hank Stram anchored CBS Radio's Monday Night Football starting in 1978, calling nearly every major game the network carried for the next seventeen years. Their final broadcast together was Super Bowl XXX in January 1996, a partnership of sixteen total seasons on radio. During those years both men also worked television: Stram called games for CBS television until the network lost NFL rights in 1993, and Buck called CBS television games from 1982 through 1987.

  Howard David succeeded Buck on play-by-play in 1996, joined by Matt Millen from the Fox television booth. Boomer Esiason entered the Monday night radio booth in 2000 after being fired by ABC from its Monday Night Football telecast. That same season was Millen's last; he departed to become President of the Detroit Lions, a position he was eventually fired from in 2008.

  Marv Albert took over play-by-play in 2002, having last called NFL games for NBC in 1997 and best known at that point for his NBA broadcasting. Albert's final call for the network was Super Bowl XLIV in Miami. On the 4th of June 2010, Albert announced he was leaving Westwood One to focus on his NBA duties for TNT and the YES Network. Kevin Harlan was named his successor on the 29th of June 2010.

  Esiason's availability for Monday night games became complicated after the premiere of the Boomer and Carton morning show on New York's WFAN. With CBS duties and the morning show together, Esiason was in New York six days a week. He used a private jet service to reach Monday night games outside the New York area, but for distant games, including west coast matchups and international contests, returning in time for a 6:00 am start was not possible, requiring a substitute. On the 9th of August 2018, Kurt Warner was announced as Esiason's permanent successor, ending Esiason's eighteen-year run in the Monday night booth. Esiason called one final game, the 2018 season opener between the Falcons and Eagles, as his farewell.

  Jim Gray hosted the Monday Night pregame and halftime shows for years, with Larry Fitzgerald contributing weekly predictions and guests including Tom Brady. Starting with the 2021 season, NFL Network host Rich Eisen succeeded Gray and relocated the coverage from New York to Los Angeles. Beginning with the 2025 season, Mike Golic and his son Mike Golic Jr. took over, extending the pregame show to 60 minutes.

• 5. The Full Broadcast Package

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  Sunday Night Football on Westwood One begins with a weekly recap program called NFL Sunday, hosted by Scott Graham and airing at 7:30 p.m. on most affiliates. The show includes highlights and statistics from the day's games alongside a preview of the upcoming Sunday night contest. For the 2006 season, the show took a different shape: it was produced in conjunction with NBC Sports, used John Williams's Sunday Night Football theme, and was modeled on the television pregame Football Night in America. Al Trautwig was the initial host that season; Scott Graham eventually became permanent host in 2009 after Chris Carlin substituted for two weeks following Trautwig's unexplained departure mid-season.

  Jack Buck called the first Sunday night games in 1987. Jim Nantz replaced him the following season and continued through 1990. Howard David held the role from 1991 through 1995, Brad Sham was hired away from the Dallas Cowboys for 1996 and 1997, Joel Meyers called games from 1998 through 2005, and Dave Sims followed through the end of the 2012 season. Ryan Radtke, previously the network's lead college football voice, was announced on the 30th of March 2022 as the permanent Sunday night play-by-play voice.

  Thursday Night Football received a dedicated broadcast team when it joined the NFL schedule permanently. Dick Enberg handled play-by-play from 2006 through 2008. Ian Eagle became the Thursday Night Football voice in 2009 and remained in that role through 2024, when his commitments to NBA on Prime Video led Westwood One to use alternating play-by-play announcers on a weekly basis for the 2025 season. As of 2022, Eagle's regular analyst was Tony Boselli.

  For late-season Saturday games, Westwood One retained broadcast rights when the NFL consolidated its Saturday package. The network carries all late-season Saturday doubleheaders with limited exceptions, such as the 2020 season game between the 49ers and Cardinals that was exclusive to Amazon Prime Video.

  During the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic, Westwood One re-broadcast select postseason games from past seasons, including Super Bowl I, Super Bowl XLII, and Super Bowl LIV.

• 6. Affiliate Rules and Reach

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  For Conference Championship games and the Super Bowl, most affiliate stations of the participating teams' radio networks must carry the Westwood One feed rather than their own local broadcasts. Only official flagship stations can transmit the home team's call, and even those local broadcasts remain available through Sirius XM NFL Radio and NFL Game Pass. The Green Bay Packers complicate this rule because they hold flagships in two separate cities: WTAQ-AM-FM and WIXX in Green Bay and WRNW in Milwaukee.

  For all other weeks, stations within 75 miles of a team's stadium are bound by exclusivity contracts. No competing Westwood One affiliate may air those games. When the New York Jets play on Sunday or Monday nights, for instance, Westwood One's New York affiliate WFAN cannot carry the broadcast because exclusive rights belong to the Jets' flagship, WEPN-FM.

  In 2009, Westwood One's primetime and playoff broadcasts became available on the NFL Game Pass subscription service under a new broadcast contract. The 2022 contract extension expanded access further: affiliates' digital platforms and the NFL mobile app can now stream Westwood One games for free, a right not available under previous agreements. That same extension introduced the possibility of alternative audio broadcasts, described by the network in terms similar to CBS's Nickelodeon simulcasts and ESPN's Peyton and Eli Megacast supplements on television.