Brad Nessler

Bradley Ray Nessler (born June 3, 1956) is an American sportscaster, who currently calls college football and college basketball games for CBS Sports.

Nessler began his professional broadcasting career sharing play–by–play radio duties with Al Ciraldo on Georgia Tech basketball on WGST from 1980–81 through 1984–85 and handled the play–by–play for the Atlanta Falcons from 1982 to 1988 on WGST and WSB, before assuming the same position for the Minnesota Vikings during the 1988 and 1989 seasons. He called preseason telecasts for the Miami Dolphins for several years and has done play–by–play of ACC football and basketball telecasts for Jefferson-Pilot.

From 1990 to 1992, Nessler worked for CBS Sports, calling NFL games, college football, and both men's and women's college basketball, including the first weekend of the 1991 and 1992 NCAA men's tournament. Additionally, he called speed-skating at the 1992 Winter Olympics.

Nessler's career with ESPN began in 1992 with college basketball games, as well as Big Ten and Thursday night football contests, and expanded with the addition of ABC Sports assignments in 1997.^{[citation needed]}

Nessler has appeared annually as a commentator in EA Sports' NCAA Football series with Kirk Herbstreit. His voice (along with that of his broadcast partner, Dick Vitale) was featured in the EA Sports NCAA March Madness video game series.^{[citation needed]}

In 1997, when Nessler began calling college football for ABC, he was regarded as the #3 play-by-play man, behind Keith Jackson and Brent Musburger. He was promoted to #2 upon Jackson's scaling back to West Coast games in 1999, and then became the #1 Saturday afternoon play-by-play man from 2006 through the 2008 season. In July 2009, ESPN announced that Nessler would move to the top play-by-play man for ESPN's coverage of college football, being primarily responsible for ESPN's Saturday Primetime game airing at 7:45 PM Eastern Time.^{[citation needed]}

Nessler originally worked with Gary Danielson as his college football color man when he began working for ABC in 1997, but from 1999 to 2008, called games alongside Bob Griese (who traded positions with Danielson). Starting in 2006, Paul Maguire joined Nessler and Griese as a third color commentator for the Saturday afternoon college telecasts. Upon the announcement of Nessler's move to ESPN's Saturday Primetime telecasts, it was announced that he would also be teamed with former Penn State quarterback Todd Blackledge and sideline reporter Erin Andrews beginning with the 2009 college football season; this crew called the January 1, 2010, Capital One Bowl on ABC.^{[citation needed]}

From 2002 to 2004, Nessler was a broadcaster for the NBA, including calling the 2003 NBA Finals. During this particular period, Nessler was accused (particularly by Richard Sandomir of The New York Times) of not knowing game strategy well, lacking rhythm and enthusiasm in his game call, not bringing out the best in his partners (i.e., Bill Walton and Tom Tolbert), too often ignoring the score, and tending to stammer.^{[citation needed]}