Brad Michael Sham (born August 16, 1949) is an American
sportscaster who is known as the "Voice of the
Dallas Cowboys
The Dallas Cowboys are a professional American football team based in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. The Cowboys compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) East divisi ...
". Sham is currently the play-by-play announcer on the
Dallas Cowboys Radio Network.
Biography
Sham has been with the Cowboys since 1976, when he was hired to be their color analyst alongside play-by-play man
Verne Lundquist. Sham also held the position of Sports Director at former Cowboys Radio Network flagship station 1080 AM
KRLD between 1976 and 1981. When Lundquist left for
CBS in 1984, Sham became the lead play-by-play man, a position he has held ever since (save for three seasons in the mid-1990s). In 2003, Sham wrote ''Dallas Cowboys: Colorful Tales of America's Greatest Teams'' (). He also contributes weekly columns to dallascowboys.com. The 2009 season marked Sham's 30th year with the organization; the longest of any broadcaster with the team, albeit not consecutive due to his three-year absence from the club from 1995–97. During his absence from the Cowboys, Sham called
Texas Rangers games on the radio with
Eric Nadel between 1995 and 1997.
Sham has done NFL play-by-play for the ''
NFL on Westwood One
''The NFL on Westwood One Sports'' is the branding for Cumulus Broadcasting subsidiary Westwood One's radio coverage of the National Football League. These games are distributed throughout the United States and Canada (the latter through TSN Radio ...
'', the ''
NFL on Fox
The ''NFL on Fox'' (also known as ''Fox NFL'') is the branding used for broadcasts of National Football League (NFL) games produced by Fox Sports and televised on the Fox broadcast network. Game coverage is usually preceded by ''Fox NFL Kickoff ...
'', ''
TNT Sunday Night Football
The ''NFL on TNT'' was the name for the series of National Football League (NFL) broadcasts produced by Turner Sports for Turner Network Television (TNT).
TNT aired NFL games on Sunday nights from 1990 until 1997 and served as one of the league ...
'', and the ''
NFL on CBS
The ''NFL on CBS'' is the branding used for broadcasts of National Football League (NFL) games that are produced by CBS Sports, the sports division of the CBS television network in the United States. The network has aired NFL game telecasts sinc ...
'' for one game in 2004. He has also worked games for
NFL Europe
NFL Europe League (simply called NFL Europe and known in its final season as NFL Europa League) was a professional American football league that functioned as the developmental minor league of the National Football League (NFL). Originally f ...
and the
Arena Football League
The Arena Football League (AFL) was a professional arena football league in the United States. It was founded in 1986, but played its first official games in the 1987 season, making it the third longest-running professional football league in ...
's
Dallas Desperados. Sham has extensive experience broadcasting collegiate sports, having done play-by-play for NCAA athletics, most notably the
NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship
The NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament, branded as NCAA March Madness and commonly called March Madness, is a single-elimination tournament played each spring in the United States, currently featuring 68 college basketball teams from ...
and college football. He spent over a decade as the radio voice of the
Texas Longhorns' football and basketball teams (mostly in the 1980s), which also aired on flagship KRLD and on the Mutual Southwest Radio Network. Sham has been in the booth for 26
Cotton Bowl Classic
The Cotton Bowl Classic (also known as the Cotton Bowl) is an American college football bowl game that has been held annually in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex since January 1, 1937. The game was originally played at its namesake stadium i ...
s, calling play-by-play for 25 games and serving as the analyst for one. He has also served as a play-by-play broadcaster for the
Big 12 Network
The Big 12 Network (stylized as the Big XII Network) was a syndicated package featuring live broadcasts of College basketball events from the Big 12 Conference that was broadcast under that branding from 2008 until 2014. It was owned and operated ...
basketball Saturdays, as well as for select
ESPN
ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The ...
Network Big 12 games.
Sham has also worked
Major League Soccer
Major League Soccer (MLS) is a men's professional soccer league sanctioned by the United States Soccer Federation, which represents the sport's highest level in the United States. The league comprises 29 teams—26 in the U.S. and 3 in Canada ...
games for the Dallas Burn (now
FC Dallas
FC Dallas is an American professional Association football, soccer club based in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. The club competes as a member of the Western Conference (MLS), Western Conference in Major League Soccer (MLS). The franchise be ...
) and
North American Soccer League The North American Soccer League may refer to:
*North American Soccer League (1968–1984), a former Division I league
*North American Soccer League (2011–2017)
The North American Soccer League (NASL) was a professional men's soccer league b ...
games for the
Dallas Tornado
The Dallas Tornado was a soccer team based in Dallas, Texas that played in the North American Soccer League (NASL) from 1967 to 1981. Of the twelve teams that comprised the U.S. in 1967, the Tornado franchise played the longest–15 seasons.
...
. He also provided color commentary for ESPN's coverage of the NASL in 1982. He also was part of the crew that covered the
1998 Winter Olympics
The 1998 Winter Olympics, officially known as the and commonly known as Nagano 1998 ( ja, 長野1998), was a winter multi-sport event held from 7 to 22 February 1998, mainly in Nagano, Japan, with some events taking place in the ...
in
Nagano, Japan Nagano may refer to:
Places
* Nagano Prefecture, a prefecture in Japan
** Nagano (city), the capital city of the same prefecture
*** Nagano 1998, the 1998 Winter Olympics
*** Nagano Olympic Stadium, a baseball stadium in Nagano
*** Nagano Univer ...
.
Sham made his acting debut in the 2008 movie,
''W.''
Honors
Sham has won the
NSSA Texas Sportscaster of the Year award 11 times and is a member of the
Texas Radio Hall of Fame
Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by bo ...
.
Personal life
Sham is
Jewish
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
.
Cory Provus, broadcaster for the
Minnesota Twins
The Minnesota Twins are an American professional baseball team based in Minneapolis. The Twins compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the American League (AL) Central Division. The team is named after the Twin Cities area w ...
is his cousin.
He graduated from the
University of Missouri
The University of Missouri (Mizzou, MU, or Missouri) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Columbia, Missouri. It is Missouri's largest university and the flagship of the four-campus Universit ...
School of Journalism
A journalism school is a school or department, usually part of an established university, where journalists are trained. 'J-School' is an increasingly used term for a journalism department at a school or college.
Journalists in most parts of the ...
in 1970.
He was a brother of the
Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sham, Brad
Arena football announcers
1949 births
Living people
American Basketball Association announcers
American radio sports announcers
American television sports announcers
Association football commentators
College basketball announcers in the United States
College football announcers
Dallas Cowboys announcers
Dallas Mavericks announcers
Jewish American sportspeople
Major League Baseball broadcasters
National Basketball Association broadcasters
National Football League announcers
NFL Europe broadcasters
North American Soccer League (1968–1984) commentators
Sportspeople from Dallas
Texas Rangers (baseball) announcers
Missouri School of Journalism alumni
21st-century American Jews