Thom Brennaman is making a return to the broadcast booth.
The former Reds broadcaster and Fox MLB and NFL play-by-play voice has been hired by The CW to call college football games four years after he lost his jobs for using an anti-gay slur on the air, The Athletic’s Andrew Marchand reported Sunday.
“There are no words to describe how grateful I am that they’re rolling the dice,” Brennaman, 60, told The Athletic. “They don’t have to do this.”
During the first game of a Reds-Royals doubleheader on Aug. 19, 2020, Brennaman, working for Fox Sports Ohio, was caught on a hot mic saying, “One of the f-g capitals of the world.”
When Brennaman was offering an on-air apology that day, he awkwardly paused to call a Nick Castellanos home run in a moment that quickly went viral.
“I pride myself and think of myself as a man of faith — as there’s a drive into deep left field by Castellanos, it will be a home run, and so that’ll make it a 4-0 ballgame,” Brennaman said during that broadcast.
The next day, Fox dismissed him from his national NFL job, and he later resigned from his Reds post after he was suspended.
Brennaman’s first game for The CW will be Idaho State at Oregon State on Aug. 31, and he’ll mostly call ACC games after that, The Athletic reported.
While looking to get back into broadcasting, he reached out to Nexstar public relations after seeing that Perry Sook, the CEO of Nexstar Media Group — which owns The CW — was a fellow Ohio University alum, per The Athletic.
Sook connected with Brennaman the next day.
“It became clear that he has taken full responsibility for his actions,” The CW president Dennis Miller told The Athletic.
Legendary broadcaster Bob Costas backed Brennaman when another CW executive, Sean Compton, reached out.
“Neither Thom nor anyone else denies that he had a serious misstep,” Costas told The Athletic “A misstep for which some consequence would have been appropriate. But the price he has paid is beyond disproportionate. Especially when you consider that he had a fine reputation prior to the incident, and took every proper step to make amends subsequent to it. His return to the booth is overdue and I am sure the audience will be happy to hear his voice again.”
Brennaman said he had reached out to people in the gay community and has gotten support from Cyd Zeigler, the co-founder of the LGBTQ+ sports website Outsports.
“I pumped my fist in the air and said, ‘Finally!’” Zeigler told The Athletic regarding Brennaman’s new job. “Somebody gave this guy a chance that he deserved. I’m so proud of The CW.”
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