Al Michaels has been making play-by-play calls for prime time NFL games for 40 years.
His next game will be Saturday, when the Chicago Bears host the Green Bay Packers in an NFC wild-card game on Amazon Prime Video.
It won’t be his last.
Michaels will return to call games for Prime Video’s NFL coverage next season, the streaming service confirmed Friday. The 81-year-old Sports Broadcasting Hall of Famer has been the play-by-play announcer for “Thursday Night Football,” with color commentator Kirk Herbstreit, since Prime Video acquired the rights to those games starting in the 2022 season.
After initially receiving a three-year deal from Amazon, which expired after 2024, Michaels reportedly worked this season under a one-year deal. Michaels told Sports Illustrated’s Jimmy Traina in November that he would be happy to return in 2026 if Amazon would have him.
“It’s a two-way street here,” Michaels said. “They could tell me, ‘We got to move on, it’s time to make a transition,’ all that. I don’t know, that could happen. But as of the moment as we sit here on this mid-November afternoon, I feel really good, still love what I do and, again, work with a tremendous crew. So, yeah, I think at this moment in time, I would like to continue, yes.”
One of Michaels’ first jobs out of college was a very brief stint with the legendary Chick Hearn on Lakers radio broadcasts in 1967. Since then, he has gone on to announce some of the biggest moments in sports history, including his signature “Do you believe in miracles? Yes!” call of the 1980 U.S. Olympic team’s upset of the Soviet Union.
Michaels was the play-by-play voice of ABC’s “Monday Night Football” from 1986-2005 and NBC’s “Sunday Night Football” from 2006-2021. He has called 11 Super Bowls, most recently on Feb. 13, 2022, when the Rams defeated the Cincinnati Bengals at SoFi Stadium.
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