Justin Kutcher is a sportscaster with
Fox Sports
Fox Sports is the brand name for a number of sports channels, broadcast divisions, programming, and other media around the world.
The ''Fox Sports'' name has since been used for other sports media assets. These assets are held mainly by the Fo ...
. He is the play-by-play broadcaster for
Atlanta Falcons
The Atlanta Falcons are a professional American football team based in Atlanta. The Falcons compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) South division. The Falcons joined th ...
preseason games, and was formerly the play-by-play announcer for the Washington Wizards on
NBC Sports Washington
NBC Sports Washington is an American regional sports network owned by Ted Leonsis's Monumental Sports & Entertainment, and operates as an affiliate of NBC Sports Regional Networks. Headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, the channel broadcasts regio ...
. Kutcher joined Fox Sports in 2012 as a play-by-play broadcaster for ''
Fox College Football
''Fox College Football'' (or ''Fox CFB'' for short) is the branding used for broadcasts of NCAA Division I FBS college football games produced by Fox Sports, and broadcast primarily by Fox, FS1, and FS2.
Initial college football broadcasts on th ...
'' and ''
Fox College Hoops
''Fox College Hoops'' (also know as ''Fox CBB or Fox Primetime Hoops for games airing in primetime hours'') is the branding used for Fox Sports broadcasts of college basketball for Fox, FS1 and FS2. Formally college basketball telecasts have al ...
''. He made his
Major League Baseball
Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...
broadcasting debut in April 2013.
Biography
Early career
Kutcher announced college sports for the
Big Ten Network
Big Ten Network (BTN) is an American sports network based in Chicago, Illinois. The channel is dedicated to coverage of collegiate sports sanctioned by the Big Ten Conference, including live and recorded event telecasts, news, analysis programs, ...
,
CBS College Sports
CBS Sports Network (a.k.a. CBSSN) is an American pay television network owned by the CBS Entertainment Group unit of Paramount Global. When it launched in 2002 as the National College Sports Network (later College Sports Television also known as ...
and
NCAA Productions. He called
Minor League Baseball at the
Double-A to
Triple-A levels, such as for the
Portland Beavers
The Portland Beavers was the name of separate minor league baseball teams, which represented Portland, Oregon, in the Pacific Coast League (PCL). The team was established in 1903, the first year of the PCL.
Franchise history
Many baseball teams ...
. He also anchored
MLB.com
MLB.com is the official site of Major League Baseball and is overseen by Major League Baseball Advanced Media, L.P. (a subsidiary of MLB). MLB.com is a source of baseball-related information, including baseball news, statistics, and sports column ...
's ''Daily Rewind'' and ''Post Season Live'' during the
2008 MLB playoffs. Other assignments include calling
Portland Timbers
The Portland Timbers are an American professional men's soccer club based in Portland, Oregon. The Timbers compete in Major League Soccer (MLS) as a member club of the league's Western Conference. The Timbers have played their home games at P ...
soccer
Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...
, the 2006 World Softball Championships in
Beijing
}
Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...
and
Boston Terriers
The Boston University Terriers are the ten men's and fourteen women's Varsity team, varsity athletic teams representing Boston University in NCAA Division I competition. Boston University's team nickname is the Terriers, and the official mascot ...
women's basketball. Before moving into the booth, he served as a statistician for ''
MLB on Fox
''MLB on Fox'' (also known as ''Fox MLB'') is an American presentation of Major League Baseball (MLB) games produced by Fox Sports, the sports division of the Fox Broadcasting Company (Fox), since June 1, 1996. The broadcaster has aired the Worl ...
'', working in the playoffs and the
World Series
The World Series is the annual championship series of Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, contested since 1903 between the champion teams of the American League (AL) and the National League (NL). The winner of the World ...
as an assistant to
Joe Buck
Joseph Francis Buck (born April 25, 1969) is an American sportscaster.
The son of sportscaster Jack Buck, he worked for Fox Sports from its 1994 inception through 2022, including roles as lead play-by-play announcer for the network's Nation ...
and
Tim McCarver
James Timothy McCarver (born October 16, 1941) is an American former professional baseball player and television sports commentator. He played in Major League Baseball as a catcher from to , most prominently as a member of the St. Louis Cardinal ...
.
ESPN
Before joining Fox, Kutcher worked for
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 ...
, where he called
football
Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...
,
basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...
,
baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding tea ...
,
softball
Softball is a game similar to baseball played with a larger ball on a smaller field. Softball is played competitively at club levels, the college level, and the professional level. The game was first created in 1887 in Chicago by George Hanc ...
,
ice hockey
Ice hockey (or simply hockey) is a team sport played on ice skates, usually on an ice skating rink with lines and markings specific to the sport. It belongs to a family of sports called hockey. In ice hockey, two opposing teams use ice hock ...
and
volleyball
Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules. It has been a part of the official program of the Summ ...
games. He was especially involved in calling college sports such as college football, college basketball, college baseball and college volleyball. He called
NBA regular season games for ESPN as well. He even called high school football and basketball for the network. He also announced the
NCAA men's volleyball tournament
The NCAA men's volleyball tournament, officially titled the NCAA National Collegiate Men's Volleyball Championship, is an annual competition that determines the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) championship in American college men ...
.
FOX Sports
Kutcher calls
Fox College Football
''Fox College Football'' (or ''Fox CFB'' for short) is the branding used for broadcasts of NCAA Division I FBS college football games produced by Fox Sports, and broadcast primarily by Fox, FS1, and FS2.
Initial college football broadcasts on th ...
. His partner was
Eric Crouch
Eric Eugene Crouch (born November 16, 1978) is a former American football quarterback. He also is a TV sports analyst and recreational equipment vendor.
Crouch played college football for the University of Nebraska. In 2001 Crouch won the Heism ...
in 2012; it is now either James Bates,
Joel Klatt
Joel Klatt (born February 4, 1982) is a college football color commentator and analyst for Fox Sports (United States), Fox Sports. Klatt played college football for the University of Colorado at Boulder, University of Colorado (CU) Colorado Buffalo ...
, or
Petros Papadakis
Petros Papadakis (born June 16, 1977) is an American sportscaster who serves as a college football analyst for Fox Sports and co-host of the '' Petros and Money Show'' on AM 570 LA Sports. He is a former tailback and team captain for the Unive ...
. Kutcher also calls select
MLB games on Fox and Fox Sports 1. He is also a play-by-play announcer for college basketball on
Fox Sports 1
Fox Sports 1 (FS1) is an American pay television channel owned by the Fox Sports Media Group, a unit of Fox Corporation. FS1 replaced the motorsports network Speed on August 17, 2013, at the same time that its companion channel Fox Sports 2 ...
. In 2013, he filled in for
Gus Johnson for a Week 15
NFL
The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the major ...
matchup between the
Arizona Cardinals
The Arizona Cardinals are a professional American football team based in the Phoenix metropolitan area. The Cardinals compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) West division, and play t ...
and the
Tennessee Titans
The Tennessee Titans are a professional American football team based in Nashville, Tennessee. The Titans compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the American Football Conference (AFC) South division, and play their h ...
. He became a regular fill-in for 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 ...
'' beginning in 2014. He also was a commentator for FOX's coverage of the
2015 FIFA Women's World Cup
The 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup was the seventh FIFA Women's World Cup, the quadrennial international soccer championship contested by the women's national teams of the member associations of FIFA. The tournament was hosted by Canada for the ...
and the 2016
Copa América Centenario
The Copa América Centenario ( pt, Copa América Centenário, french: Coupe Amerique Centennaire, en, Centennial Cup America; literally ''Centennial America Cup'') was an international men's association football tournament that was hosted by the ...
. He also calls
Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show
The Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show is an all-breed conformation show, traditionally held annually at New York City's Madison Square Garden.
The Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show is one of a handful of benched shows in the United States. Dogs ...
daytime coverage for fellow Fox channel
Nat Geo Wild
National Geographic Wild (shortened as Nat Geo Wild and abbreviated NGW) is a global pay television network owned by National Geographic Partners, a joint venture between The Walt Disney Company (73%) and the National Geographic Society (27%). T ...
and the Masters Agility Championship, which is also part of the Westminster Kennel Club events.
Wizards
In 2019, NBC Sports Washington hired Justin Kutcher as the new television play-by-play announcer for Washington Wizards' games, replacing
Steve Buckhantz. Kutcher worked with the Wizards until April 2022.
Personal life
While attending
Boston University
Boston University (BU) is a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. The university is nonsectarian, but has a historical affiliation with the United Methodist Church. It was founded in 1839 by Methodists with its original campu ...
, he was sports director at student station
WTBU. He graduated with a degree from the College of Communication. He is also a graduate of the
Hopkins School
Hopkins School is a private, college-preparatory, coeducational, day school for grades 7–12 located in New Haven, Connecticut.
In 1660, Edward Hopkins, seven-time governor of the Connecticut Colony, bequeathed a portion of his estate to found s ...
. He grew up in
Fairfield, Connecticut
Fairfield is a town in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. It borders the city of Bridgeport and towns of Trumbull, Easton, Weston, and Westport along the Gold Coast of Connecticut. Located within the New York metropolitan area ...
and lives in
Charlotte, North Carolina
Charlotte ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Located in the Piedmont region, it is the county seat of Mecklenburg County. The population was 874,579 at the 2020 census, making Charlotte the 16th-most populo ...
.
References
External links
Fox Sports biography
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kutcher, Justin
Living people
American sports announcers
Atlanta Falcons announcers
Boston University College of Communication alumni
College basketball announcers in the United States
College football announcers
College hockey announcers in the United States
High school football announcers in the United States
High school basketball announcers in the United States
Major League Baseball broadcasters
Major League Soccer broadcasters
Minor League Baseball broadcasters
National Basketball Association broadcasters
National Football League announcers
People from Boston
People from Fairfield, Connecticut
Softball announcers
Volleyball commentators
Washington Wizards announcers
Women's college basketball announcers in the United States
Year of birth missing (living people)