Last week it was reported that Gus Johnson was leaving his position at CBS where he had entrenched himself as an immensely popular announcer for college basketball, NFL, and MMA events (though much less popular there). That brought into question whether he could retain enough relevance to remain as the play-by-play announcer in the Madden NFL series. He has now signed on with Fox as the network’s top college football announcer (Pac-12, Big-12, Conference USA) and he will also call NFL games after the college season ends.
Even though his exposure working on NFL games will be more limited that should be enough for EA Sports to keep him on in the Madden series for at least the immediate future (next few iterations). It may be a surprise to some that Johnson was not the top guy at CBS, in fact he was ranked as their number five play-by-play announcer out of eight. That is why he would typically be on less desirable match-ups that featured teams like Buffalo and Jacksonville. Johnson’s popularity has transcended his actual work and that energy is still a positive for Madden if it can be harnessed better than it was in his first year recording audio for the franchise.