After starting Sunday in Augusta, Mike Tirico finds his way to Bristol SportsCenter
From the Masters to SportsCenter, it was a long but rewarding Sunday for Mike Tirico.
Tirico returned to his ESPN roots Sunday night, joining John Buccigross to host the 11 p.m. ET edition of SportsCenter from ESPN’s Bristol, Ct., headquarters. Tirico, who started with ESPN in 1991 as a SportsCenter anchor but is now one of the network’s busiest play-by-play announcers, had not hosted an episode of SportsCenter since 2003.
But what made the day more remarkable was that Tirico started Sunday in Augusta, Ga., where he had hosted ESPN’s coverage of the Masters Tournament all week. After some remote SportsCenter segments Sunday morning from Augusta National Golf Club, he flew to Connecticut to prepare for the post Sunday Night Baseball SportsCenter.
“[Producer] Tom DeCorte and his team could not have made the night more enjoyable,” said Tirico, who led the discussion of Jordan Spieth’s Masters victory, among other topics during the program.
– Mike Tirico on first Bristol, Conn. SportsCenter anchoring stint since 2003
Tirico was working inside ESPN’s 10-month-old Digital Center 2, the home of the SportsCenter studio, for the first time.
“So much of the studio, geography and systems have changed since I last anchored a dozen years ago, so it took me a while to catch up,” he said. “I only got lost twice and parked as far from the newsroom as possible, but at least I didn’t miss the show.”
Buccigross, too, was coming off live event coverage, having done play-by-play for the Frozen Four NCAA hockey championship game the night before in Boston.
“I can’t tell you how much fun I had,” Tirico said. “Bucci is as talented as he is personable and could work with a stranger and make it good for the viewer.
“It was a great reminder of how talented the people working on Sportscenter truly are,” he said. “They make it look so easy every night and it is far from the truth.”
