Jason Benetti steps into the spotlight as NBC’s lead voice for 'Sunday Night Baseball'
When Sam Flood learned in November that NBC would be back doing baseball, he immediately knew who he wanted as his play-by-play voice and the format for it. Viewers will get their first look and listen on Thursday when NBC has an Opening Day doubleheader. The prime time game between the two-time defending World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers and Arizona Diamondbacks will be Jason Benetti’s debut as the network’s lead baseball announcer.
Benetti will be the voice of “Sunday Night Baseball,” which moves to NBC and Peacock after 26 seasons on ESPN. He handled play-by-play for the “MLB Sunday Leadoff” package on Peacock in 2022 after calling baseball for NBC during the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. “Sam and I always joked after 2022 — and he was serious, and it turned out I was, too — that if NBC ever got baseball back in this sort of state, that I would be on the list of people that he would call.
And I firmly appreciate that,” Benetti said. Benetti had been with Fox Sports since 2022, calling baseball, NFL, college football and college basketball. Fox let him out of his contract early for this opportunity.
NBC will do the Sunday night games and Wild Card rounds the next three seasons after ESPN opted out of its original rights deal with MLB. Benetti is a familiar voice for baseball fans, especially those in Detroit and Chicago. This will also be his third season calling Tigers games locally after eight seasons with the White Sox.
The format of “Sunday Night Baseball” will be the same as it was for “Sunday Leadoff. ” Benetti will be joined in the booth by analysts from both teams. On Thursday night, it will be former Dodgers pitcher Orel Hershiser and Diamondbacks slugger Luis Gonzalez, who led the franchise to a World Series title in 2001.
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