For the next two weeks, some 200 marathon television viewers will be able to judge for themselves, as Gumbel assumes what is the pinnacle of TV sports gigs – solo prime-time host at the Olympics. When CBS Sports dumped its resident bigfoot, Brent Musburger, in 1990, the network vowed it would never again let one star dominate its programming. But in the four years Gumbel 47, has been at CBS, he has ascended to, if not No. 1, a pretty clear 1-A status. The past year be has hosted the prestigious NFL pregame show, as well as Sunday- and Monday-night football on CBS radio, and done play-by-play for Major League Baseball and the NCAA basketball tournament. Yet even as Gumbel commands the nation’s attention from Norway, he maintains some perspective. “People are tuning in to see the Olympics, not to see me talk,” he says. “My job is to get them there – kind of like a glorified air-traffic controller.”
In an industry where outsize egos are the norm, Gumbel’s genuine affability and modesty help account for his popularity. “He’s either a really good person or a really great actor,” says Bradshaw, his “NFL Today sidekick. Gumbel’s on- and off-air demeanor is a dramatic counterpoint to the cool, caustic and cocky style of his younger, better-known brother, Bryant, host of NBC’s “Today” show.
Though the two are not close friends, Greg says they remain on good terms and talk regularly, It was Bryant who pointed Greg, who had worked in hospital-supplies and printing businesses, to his first TV job at the NBC affiliate in their hometown of Chicago. (Bryant refused to be interviewed for this story.) Greg won’t discuss reported family schisms between Bryant and their mother, and he defends his brother and, at times, vociferously. When a stranger on the street told him, “Your brother’s an ass—-,” Greg retorted in schoolboy fashion, “Your brother’s an ass– too.” Still, Greg admits he gets tired of being asked to “say hi to Willard.” When an airport attendant greeted Greg, “Hey, you’re Mr. Gumbel’s brother,” he bristled, “Then I guess you know my name too!”
The Olympic assignment in Norway provides Gumbel with an opportunity to succeed where many, including his brother, who hosted the Seoul Olympics in 1988, have failed. Most Olympic anchors have discovered that Jim McKay’s legacy looms as a near-impossible standard. “Back when Jim did his great work, people were still enthralled with the very idea of live pictures from Mexico City or Munich,” says Bob Costas, who was widely praised for his performance hosting the 1992 Barcelona Games. “People are much more jaded about sports now.” In Albertville in 1992, CBS’s mismatched duo of Paula Zahn and Tim McCarver couldn’t make figure skating let alone luge sound exciting. Costas, for one, believes Gumbel will win over the audience in what is a 16-day marathon. “Greg’s a guy who wears very well,” he says.
Gumbel doesn’t want to rely on the fact that “people tend to like me” for success in Norway. He has been schooling himself in Olympic minutiae for months now, absorbing the distilled works of network researchers. That’s no easy task, given that the bobsled and luge, for example, were distilled to 200 pages. “I’m driven by a fear of making a fool of myself,” he says. He doesn’t believe in stirring up controversy for its own sake and thinks critics confuse his low-key style with lack of substance. “I don’t think we’re required to barbecue the athletes,” he says, “just because some of them are jerks.”
Gumbel’s rise at CBS has coincided with the network’s decline in televised sports. During his tenure it has lost the NBA, Major League Baseball and now the NFL. While CBS promotes its prestigious tennis and golf schedule as well as the Daytona 500, Gumbel doesn’t envision his future broadcasting auto racing. “I just can’t see me down in the pits saying, “They’ve made a pit stop. I have no idea why. Back to the race’,” he says. Then again Gumbel is very much in control of his future. His contract with CBS expires this fall. A gold medal performance in Lillehammer, and it could be Bryant who will be best known as Mr. Gumbel’s brother. Such a nice fellow, that Mr. Gumbel: what’s the matter with you, bro?
