McManus said he was left in awe by Tiger Woods’ 2019 Masters win.getty images
For many years, there has been in the broadcast control room at CBS Sports a red, old-fashioned princess telephone — handheld, corded, a true reminder of a simpler time in the media world. For just as long, only one person has had the number to that phone: Sean McManus. In what might be the clearest sign yet that McManus is retiring after 27 years atop CBS Sports, he will pass along that phone number to his successor, David Berson, and, he pledges, “I will not be calling.”
McManus has been making the biggest calls for CBS Sports since taking over as president in 1996 (he also served as president of CBS News and has been chairman of CBS Sports since 2011). Among the most notable: bringing the NFL back to CBS in 1998, extending the rights to the NCAA men’s basketball tournament several times and securing two Big Ten football championship games as part of a deal that kicks off this fall.
Just a couple of weeks before he retired, McManus was asked to reflect on his memorable moments at the helm of CBS Sports. April was dawning, which has always been a month synonymous with his division, when it airs first the men’s Final Four and then, one week later, the Masters. “It’s the best 2½ weeks on the sports calendar,” he said. “To be able to go from [the Final Four] down to Augusta National is just a dream come true for a sports fan.”
Part of McManus’ success might be due to the fact that while he was skilled at all levels of sports television production, he never lost sight of what it was like to be a fan, and those were the memories that were top of mind.
“My first year ended up being extraordinary in terms of the events that we covered,” he said. “Two that stand out the most was Tiger [Woods] in 1997 with his historic victory at Augusta, and I remember as if it was yesterday the 1997 NCAA championship game overtime win by Arizona over Kentucky. I remember Billy Packer’s line which was, ‘Simon says championship.’ The [Wildcats players] messed up Lute Olson’s perfect hair. After that incredibly exciting game with two big national programs, I thought I’m really going to enjoy this job.”
And he has. Here are a few more moments that have stood out for McManus:
No surprise that McManus, a Duke alum, includes the Blue Devils’ 2015 basketball championship among his favorite memories.getty images
The Final Four: Duke wins its fifth national title in 2015: “I was with my son on the court when the confetti came down. It was just an enormous feeling of pride and satisfaction that my alma mater had won another tournament.”
The Masters: Tiger Woods wins his fifth green jacket and first in 14 years in 2019. “The greatest comeback in the history of sports. To go through what he went through between his last Masters win and … to see him hug his son, captured by the same angle that Tiger hugged his dad in 1997, was as extraordinary a moment in sports as anybody has ever seen. I was in absolutely in awe and thought it was the most extraordinary thing I’d ever seen in sports.”
The Super Bowl: The Chiefs beat the 49ers in overtime in February 2024: “It was one of, if not the greatest, Super Bowl ever played, and it was the most-watched event by a wide margin [123.4 million viewers across all platforms]. The country really seemed to come together for this one. I don’t want to diminish the importance of Taylor Swift, either. That made it a cultural event. We had 165 cameras and 19 mobile units and 48 replay angles. You work so hard on Super Bowls and you have basically 11 hours of programming on that Sunday to show what kind of job you can do, and our production and commentary were second to none.”
McManus left that night with an emotional experience on par to those experienced by the athletes he and his colleagues have chronicled so well for so long. “There’s a feeling of euphoria, or camaraderie with your teammates, because you’ve prepared for months and in this case years, and you’ve been so focused on what you’re doing that the littlest mistake can cost you the game or a good broadcast,” he said. “It’s like being the winning quarterback on the Super Bowl team: There’s high fives, there’s hugs, there’s tears. There’s nothing like that adrenaline or emotional high you get like a big-time sports event.”
McManus will have a different emotional experience with those events in the years to come: “I’ll be very ready for this next move,” he said. “I haven’t really made a plan, but I think watching it with my family will be a lot of fun. My daughter, Maggie, has become a big college basketball fan. My son, Jackson, is an avid golf fan who has an enormous appreciation for everything surrounding the Masters. I could see watching it at home with them for the first time in 27 years.”
Good call.
