Al Michaels has strong feelings about retirement tours.
“Don’t need one,” he told USA TODAY Sports by phone last week. “Don’t want one.”
When Michaels, Amazon’s “Thursday Night Football” play-by-play announcer for Prime Video, hangs it up – that’ll be simply be it. But that time has not yet arrived.
In fact, Michaels has another piece of history to make. His call of the Buffalo Bills’ home opener against the Detroit Lions on Sept. 17 will be the 10th time in his career he calls the first regular-season game from a new stadium – a third of the NFL’s venues.
“I should bring my own scissors with me to cut the ribbon,” Michaels joked.
But the Bills-Lions matchup marks the first time he’s inaugurating a stadium with Amazon after years of calling both
“Monday Night Football” for ABC and “Sunday Night Football” for NBC.
“Of all of the years on Sunday and Monday, we had so many of the premiere games,” Michaels said. “So the league wanted us to open a stadium under the bright lights either Monday night or Sunday night – and that’s the case here too. So it’s kind of a source of pride here that the league thought they’d open up the new one in football on ‘Thursday Night Football.’ I’m excited about it.”
On balance, the caliber of games the league has given to Amazon has improved year-over-year, Michaels said.
“When we started out, the schedule was OK. And now the schedule was excellent,” he said.
The streaming service ended up with one of the best games of the 2025 regular season when the Rams lost to the Seattle Seahawks in a game that ended up deciding the NFC West.
Other games Michaels has circled on Amazon’s schedule this season include a Week 6 tilt featuring Seattle at Denver, the New England Patriots facing the Chicago Bears the following week and the Rams hosting the Kansas City Chiefs in December. The Baltimore Ravens and Cincinnati Bengals have the New Year’s Eve spotlight Dec. 31.
“You never know how they’re going to turn out, obviously, but when you look at our schedule … you can’t ask for much more than that,” Michaels said.
Highmark Stadium another first for Al Michaels
One of the aspects of the job Michaels still enjoys the most is the buzz while arriving at the stadium. The energy from the fans reminds him of growing up in Flatbush, Brooklyn, and walking to Ebbets Field for Dodgers games.
“I still get a charge out of it,” said Michaels, who is entering his fifth season calling “TNF” alongside Kirk Herbstreit. “And this is going to be a lot of fun on Thursday night for me.”
The nine other stadium “firsts” for Michaels have some memorable moments, such as the opening of SoFi Stadium, home of the Los Angeles Chargers and Rams, to no crowd because of the COVID-19 pandemic. He also saw the New York Giants knock off the Dallas Cowboys at AT&T Stadium’s opener, and, for his first opener, he watched the Denver Broncos host the Giants on Sept. 10, 2011.
Michaels, 81, and Herbstreit received a tour of the new Highmark Stadium the day before the game. Even prior to that, Michaels had an idea of the booth’s layout and his sightlines thanks to detailed photographs sent to him by the crew.
“I’m not anticipating issues,” Michaels said, while he noted the press the stadium received during the preseason for seats that had obstructed views.
Most modern stadiums, Michaels said, are constructed with the television product in mind, which helps.
The best vantage point in the league, according to the five-time Sports Emmy Award winner, belongs to Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City. He joked that he doesn’t even need a monitor next to him while calling games there. Old Candlestick Park in San Francisco was the most difficult assignment because the football press box was practically “looking down on the blimp, that was horrible,” Michaels said.
How Amazon's Al Michaels, Kirk Herbstreit partnership looks in Year 5
While Michaels maintains he’ll do the job as long as he can and somebody pays him to do so, he doesn’t have singular agency in determining his broadcasting future.
Michaels and Herbstreit, according to multiple reports, have entered the final year of their contracts. ESPN’s Joe Buck recently reupped on a new deal that pays him $18 million annually and keeps him at the network into the 2030s.
Michaels said his relationship with Herbstreit has only grown over the dozens of games they’ve now worked side by side. He knew his partner was incredibly prepared from the beginning, and Michaels marvels at Herbstreit’s schedule during fall weekend and the stamina required to call the NFL game Thursday night, fly for “College GameDay” prep, do that show Saturday morning and call the marquee college football game of the week that night.
“Through the years, we’re working better and better, there’s no question about it,” Michaels said, adding: “I think we’ve developed a really good partnership.”
What Michaels appreciates about Herbstreit is that the latter meets Michaels on the play-by-play man’s desired levity scale. Michaels is a believer in injecting that into every broadcast.
“Just enough,” he said. “I probably have a quirky sense of humor … a bit of a rascal in me as well, and he’s played along like a great sidekick, when I go in that direction.”
Herbsreit’s relationships with players that date back to his time calling their college games paid off immediately in Michaels’ eyes. Michaels could ask him something about a rookie and he could expertly give him an anecdote or analysis from the player's college career.
“I thought he had an advantage, especially early on, because he knew all the (rookies and second-year players) better than most of the broadcast teams … so I think in that sense, it’s been a tremendous advantage for him,” Michaels said. “And now he’s fully-ingrained in the NFL.”
Al Michaels not thinking about retirement from broadcasting
When asked how much longer Michaels wanted to keep calling games, he let out a chuckle.
“I’m living in the moment. They’ve been asking me this for 10, 12, 15 years, whatever it’s been," Michaels said. "And I say ‘You know what? I’m living in the moment.’”
Michaels told the famous story involving Marv Levy, who was the longtime coach of the Buffalo Bills. During a production meeting, Michaels broached the subject with Levy.
“If you think about retiring,” Levy told him, “you’re already retired.”
Michaels used that story on the air that night. The message has stuck with him all these years later.
“Look, let’s put it this way – I still have a passion for it,” Michaels said. “If you lose your passion, then it’s time to go. If you still have passion, it might be time to go anyway, but not because you’ve lost your passion. I still have that passion. I look forward to going for the games."
Forty-one years on the job, he still gets a thrill.
“It’s as simple as that,” Michaels said.
John Madden, Michaels’ partner from at both ABC and NBC in the 2000s, didn’t conduct a retirement tour. The duo called Super Bowl 43 between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Arizona Cardinals. Michaels walked out of the booth thinking to himself, “Man, that’s as good as it gets.” He didn’t know it was Madden’s last game. Neither did Madden, Michaels believed. Madden quietly retired that April.
“You don’t need a farewell tour,” Michaels said.
“It’s not that you can’t think about the past or the future. But I prefer to live in the moment, in the present.”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: At 81, Al Michaels has no plans to retire and is still 'a bit of a rascal'
