List of New York Giants broadcasters
As of 2008, the National Football League New York Giants' flagship radio station is WFAN 660 AM, the oldest all-sports radio station in the United States. Some games in August and September are moved to WXRK 92.3 FM due to conflicts with the New York Mets baseball team. Since 2008 the broadcast features play-by-play man Bob Papa and color commentator Carl Banks, with Howard Cross reporting from the sidelines and Russ Salzberg and Roman Oben hosting the pregame show.
Preseason telecasts not seen nationally air in the area on WNBC, "NBC 4 HD."
Past
WFAN has produced the Giants' radio broadcasts since the mid '90s, but has not always aired them on the station. The first year of production saw the games airing on the team's flagship station at the time, WOR. For the following season the radiocasts aired simultaneously on both WOR and WFAN, with the games moving solely to the latter the next year. In 1999 WFAN decided to begin airing the Giants broadcast on sister station WNEW-FM, a practice it ended after one season. The Giants' radiocasts moved back to WFAN and have been there ever since.
The Giants' longtime radio home was WNEW-AM, where games aired from the mid-1950s until 1993 when the station was bought by Bloomberg L.P. and changed its format. Marty Glickman teamed with Al DeRogatis for a long stretch beginning in the early 1960s on WNEW-AM. Chip Cipolla and later Sam Huff joined Glickman after DeRogatis left to join Curt Gowdy on NBC. After the WNEW split, games began airing on WOR. Glickman moved to the crosstown Jets in 1973 and was succeeded by Marv Albert. Jim Gordon succeeded Albert in 1977, beginning an 18-year tenure as the Giants' play-by-play voice. Meanwhile, Dick Lynch took over as color analyst in 1976 and continued in that role through the 2007 season, with his last game being Super Bowl XLII. Lynch did not return to the booth for 2008 due to illness (leukemia), which took his life in September 2008.
Eventually Gordon and Lynch were joined by Karl Nelson, a former lineman for the Giants. Gordon and Nelson were fired after the 1994 season, after which Papa took over the play-by-play (after being studio host) and led a two-man booth with Lynch. The broadcast team would not have another third member until Dave Jennings was fired from his job as radio analyst for the Jets in 2002. Jennings was moved to the pregame show after the 2006 season and was replaced by Carl Banks.
After WFAN began airing games Richard Neer served as pregame and postgame host. Eventually, Sid Rosenberg served as pregame and postgame host for home games. They were replaced by Chris Carlin, who in turn was replaced by Salzberg for 2008.
The Giants were carried on the DuMont Network, then CBS (New York's Channel 2) in the early TV days of the NFL, when home games were blacked out within a 75-mile radius of New York City. Chris Schenkel was their play-by-play announcer in that early era when each team was assigned its own network voice on its regional telecasts. At the time, there were few if any true national telecasts until the NFL championship game, which was carried by NBC. Schenkel was joined by Jim McKay, later Johnny Lujack through the 1950s and the early 1960s. As Giants players retired to the broadcast booth in the early and 1960s, first Pat Summerall, then Frank Gifford took the color analyst slot next to Schenkel. As the 1970 merger of the NFL and AFL approached, CBS moved to a more generic announcer approach and Schenkel was off the broadcasts.
Giants regular-season Sunday telecasts moved to Fox when that network took over NFC telecasts in 1994.
Broadcasters by year
References
- ↑ Halberstam, David J. (1999). Sports on New York Radio. McGraw-Hill.