NBC Sports Executive Producer Fred Gaudelli to receive Pete Rozelle Radio-Television Award

Media Published on : 5/10/2023

  • Under his leadership, ‘Sunday Night Football’ broadcasts have topped primetime ratings chart for 12 consecutive seasons


In 2022, professional football accounted for 82 of the country’s 100 top-rated television shows. And no primetime program over any of the past 12 years — an unprecedented run in American broadcasting — has outdrawn NBC’s “Sunday Night Football.”

Today, the Pro Football Hall of Fame announced that the person at the helm for NBC Sports’ football coverage during its 16 years of ratings dominance, Fred Gaudelli, has been chosen to receive its 2023 Pete Rozelle Radio-Television Award.

“The Hall of Fame presents this award annually in recognition of longtime exceptional contributions to radio and television in professional football, and no one has set a better example of exactly what this award represents than Fred Gaudelli,” said Jim Porter, president of the Pro Football Hall of Fame. “Millions of fans have tuned into ‘Sunday Night Football’ week after week and year after year, and Fred continually took the broadcast to new heights.”

Gaudelli will be honored during the 2023 Pro Football Hall of Fame Enshrinement Week Powered by Johnson Controls that includes the Enshrinees’ Gold Jacket Dinner in downtown Canton on Friday, Aug. 4, and the Class of 2023 Enshrinement on Saturday, Aug. 5, in Tom Benson Hall of Fame Stadium.

“I’m beyond honored and overjoyed to be named this year’s recipient of the Pete Rozelle Radio-Television Award,” Gaudelli said. “Pete Rozelle blazed the trail that enabled the National Football League to become America’s No. 1 entertainment entity. For 33 years and counting, I’ve had the privilege of contributing to that legacy by producing primetime games for four networks: ESPN, ABC, NBC & Amazon Prime. Joining former award winners — not to mention colleagues and friends including John Madden, Al Michaels, Chris Berman, Dick Ebersol, Howard Katz and Andrea Kremer — makes this honor the greatest of my career.”

Katz won the Pete Rozelle Radio-Television Award in 2022. Kremer, in 2018, became the second woman to win the award.

Gaudelli completed his 33rd season as the lead producer for an NFL primetime TV game last January. He served as executive producer of the debut of Amazon Prime Video’s “Thursday Night Football,” a collaboration with NBC Sports.

Under Gaudelli’s guidance, NBC’s “Sunday Night Football” became the most-honored live sports series in U.S. television history. In its first 16 seasons on NBC (2006-2021), the program won 30 Sports Emmys and collected a record 11 as Outstanding Live Sports Series.

Prior to joining “Sunday Night Football,” Gaudelli spent five seasons as producer of ABC’s “Monday Night Football.” Under his leadership, “Monday Night Football” and the production of Super Bowl XXXVII were nominated for nine Emmy Awards and won four, including Outstanding Live Sports Series in 2004. He produced ESPN’s Sunday night games from 1990 through 2000, winning Outstanding Live Sports Series for the 2000 season.

Gaudelli is credited with several innovations that improved the TV viewing experience. He introduced the “1st & Ten technology” (the electronically produced line that shows the first down mark on the field), the GoalPost Cam and the rotating clock/score box.

A 24-time Emmy winner and producer of seven Super Bowls, Gaudelli was elected to the Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame in August 2020 for career-long excellence in the sports TV and media industry.

A native of Harrison, N.Y., Gaudelli earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in communications from Long Island University/C.W. Post in 1982. He resides in Madison, Conn.

 

Past winners of the Pete Rozelle Radio-Television Award

  • 2022 – Howard Katz
  • 2021 – John Facenda
  • 2020 – Joe Buck
  • 2019 – Dick Ebersol
  • 2018 – Andrea Kremer
  • 2017 – David Hill
  • 2016 – James Brown
  • 2015 – Tom Jackson
  • 2014 – Bob Trumpy
  • 2013 – Al Michaels
  • 2012 – Len Dawson
  • 2011 – Jim Nantz
  • 2010 – Chris Berman
  • 2009 – Irv Cross
  • 2008 – Dan Dierdorf
  • 2007 – Don Meredith
  • 2006 – Lesley Visser
  • 2005 – Myron Cope
  • 2004 – Van Miller
  • 2003 – Don Criqui
  • 2002 – John Madden
  • 2001 – Roone Arledge
  • 2000 – Ray Scott
  • 1999 – Dick Enberg
  • 1998 – Val Pinchbeck
  • 1997 – Charlie Jones
  • 1996 – Jack Buck
  • 1995 – Frank Gifford
  • 1994 – Pat Summerall
  • 1993 – Curt Gowdy
  • 1992 – Chris Schenkel
  • 1991 – Ed Sabol
  • 1990 – Lindsey Nelson
  • 1989 – Bill McPhail


 
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