Sportscaster Al Michaels, who called a World Series in Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium and a Super Bowl in the Georgia Dome, will broadcast the first regular-season NFL game in Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
The Falcons’ home opener against the Green Bay Packers will be televised on NBC’s “Sunday Night Football,” which last season averaged 20.3 million viewers to rank as prime-time TV’s No. 1 series for a sixth consecutive year.
The Falcons follow the Indianapolis Colts (2008), Dallas Cowboys (2009), San Francisco 49ers (2014) and Minnesota Vikings (2016) in playing their first regular-season game in a new stadium on the NFL’s Sunday night stage.
“It creates some extra buzz for us and for the league and obviously whoever is building the stadium,” said Michaels, in his 12th season as the play-by-play voice of “Sunday Night Football” after filling the same role for 20 years on ABC’s “Monday Night Football.”
“Look, most people are going to tune in to watch the game, but (a new stadium) provides a great enhancement for us,” Michaels said in an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “It keeps people watching a little longer if the game goes south on us because we can show them certain things. And I think this stadium is going to televise extremely well. … I just hope we can open up the roof and really do it justice.”
The game won’t be Mercedes-Benz Stadium’s national-TV debut – the Alabama-Florida State college-football game Sept. 2 drew an audience of 12.5 million for ABC – but it will be the first event in the stadium with the roof open if the weather is favorable.
Michaels has a history of broadcasting big events in Atlanta sports, as he does most places.
He called Games 1, 4 and 5 of the 1995 World Series, which was split between ABC (Michaels’ network at the time) and NBC. The Braves won the series in six games. Michaels would have called Game 7.
“I’m a neutral observer, but I must say in Game 6 I was clearly rooting for Cleveland because I wanted to do a seventh game,” he said. “I’ve gotten to do some, but you can’t do enough.”
He called the 2000 Super Bowl at the Georgia Dome, the St. Louis Rams’ down-to-the-last-play win over the Tennessee Titans in the aftermath of an Atlanta ice storm.
“I remember saying early on in that game, ‘Atlanta has hosted the summer Olympics, and now they’re getting ready to host the winter Olympics,’” Michaels said.
Atlanta’s 1996 Olympics remain a bit of a painful subject for him.
“I’ve had a blessed career … so there are no regrets,” he said. “But people ask me, ‘Have you ever had any real disappointments in your career?’ And I can’t say I really have except for one. … Not getting to do the Atlanta Olympics.”
He had it written into his contract with ABC at the time that if the network televised the Atlanta Games, he would be the prime-time host. But NBC narrowly outbid ABC for the broadcast rights.
As he reflected on his experiences involving Atlanta sports, Michaels mentioned that the Braves played in the first major-league game he called. That was opening day of the 1971 season at Cincinnati, his first of three years in the Reds’ broadcast booth.
He still remembers the first four batters of that game: Sonny Jackson, Ralph Garr and Hank Aaron in the top of the first inning, then Pete Rose leading off the bottom of the inning.
Michaels also recalls calling three Atlanta 500 auto races in 1978-80, even though “I know nothing about cars, trust me.”
As for Sunday night’s game on NBC, Michaels offers this forecast: “I think it’s going to be high-scoring, if I had to guess. I see a real close game. I hope for a close game. I think it’s going to be exciting. I mean, you’ve got two teams who can light it up. And that always makes for good television.”
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