(09-24-2011 10:57 PM)Athens_Falcon Wrote:  I wish we could hear him more often, but in the mean time, just replace the announcer with this:

The Gus Johnson Soundboard

(09-24-2011 09:52 PM)Paulitik Wrote:  I'm watching Mizzou Oklahoma and man, he's light years beyond Joe Buck. I haven't seen him calling anything on Fox NFL Sunday. Is he strictly College now? What a damn shame. He should be calling Primetime games. He can make watching 2 teams I don't give a shit about worth it.

I'll take him over Al Michaels or Mike Tirico any day.

CBS was stupid for letting him go, and Fox is even more for not making him their marquee name.

Quote:Fox on Tuesday officially named Gus Johnson as its lead play-by-play voice for the network's expanding college football and basketball coverage.


Sports Television
By Michael Hiestand

By Andy Lyons, Getty Images
Though Gus Johnson has officially joined Fox, he could continue to call NCAA basketball tournament games for CBS.
Enlarge
By Andy Lyons, Getty Images
Though Gus Johnson has officially joined Fox, he could continue to call NCAA basketball tournament games for CBS.
But Fox Sports president Eric Shanks says recruiting Johnson, who's leaving CBS after 16 years, started well before Fox recently landed Pacific-12 football and basketball, which will be a cornerstone of Johnson's Fox assignments. "I met Gus last year," Shanks says. "We've been talking ever since. The (Pac-12) deal made it more of a no-brainer."

Johnson says he "lost a lot of sleep over" leaving CBS' NCAA basketball tournament coverage. But as far as Fox is concerned, Shanks says, Johnson might not have worked his last CBS broadcast. CBS, whose NCAA coverage is now done jointly with Turner Sports, has used announcers moonlighting from other networks, such as ESPN's Jay Bilas and Len Elmore. Shanks says: "As a fan, I think Gus' voice belongs on March Madness."

Johnson never called the NCAA Final Four at CBS and was relegated to its lesser NFL games, but he gained fame from excitable and idiosyncratic game calls that become fodder for viral online video — making him the most prominent sportscaster on YouTube. Johnson on moving from CBS to Fox: "I don't know if it's necessarily a better fit. It's a new opportunity and a bigger stage for me — getting to be a lead play-by-play guy for a network like Fox."
And he suggests Fox should know what it's getting: "I don't think changing my style is something I'd be comfortable doing."

At Fox, Johnson will team on Pac-12 football with analyst Charles Davis, who has called Fox BCS and NFL games. The pair will also call the Cotton Bowl and two football games on the Big Ten Network, which is partly owned by Fox. Johnson will also call about 30 BTN basketball games and some unspecified college hoops on Fox or its FX cable channel.

While Johnson had a regular slate of NFL games at CBS — albeit ones aired in relatively few TV markets — Shanks suggests that he'll call only two or three Fox NFL regular-season games, and then only after the college football season. Shanks, when asked if Johnson might call any NFL playoff action: "You never say never, but we've already got our postseason crews."

And though Shanks won't point to anything specific, he says Fox is "wide-open" to using Johnson in other on-air roles. Like maybe adding him as a fourth judge on American Idol? Says Shanks, laughing: "That would be great." Maybe he's joking.