Fox has pulled Thom Brennaman from its NFL lineup, the network said Thursday. The move comes a day after the Reds suspended Brennaman indefinitely because the play-by-play announcer used an anti-gay slur, saying “one of the f— capitals of the world” into an open microphone during a Reds-Royals game.
“The language used was abhorrent, unacceptable, and not representative of the values of Fox Sports,” the network said in a statement. “As it relates to Brennaman’s Fox NFL role, we are moving forward with our NFL schedule which will not include him.”
Brennaman has been a longtime workhorse for Fox, calling MLB games for the network from 1996 to 2015 and NFL games intermittently since 1994. He started calling NFL games on Fox in 1994, and has been doing so regularly since 2009. He’s also done play-by-play for the Diamondbacks and Cubs, and has been the TV voice of the Reds since 2006.
He used the slur on a live broadcast Wednesday night, speaking into an apparently hot mic before introducing the top of the seventh inning. It’s not clear what location Brennaman was referring to; he said it over a shot of an empty Reds ballpark while the game was being played in Kansas City.
That was the last inning of the first game of a doubleheader; he worked the next five innings before delivering a glum and bizarre on-air apology that was interrupted by a Reds home run.
Brennaman is the son of legendary Reds radio announcer Marty Brennaman, who was the team’s play-by-play radio voice from 1974 to 2019. In 2011, Marty Brennaman said that a university president who got a softball stadium built “must be queer for softball.”
Both Brennamans have been insistent that it was some kind of fraudulent Brennaman who used the slur on live television. “That is not who I am, and it never has been,” Thom said Wednesday.
“As a dad, I hurt for him,” Marty Brennaman said. “What he said is not a reflection of who Thom Brennaman is. I know that’s not him. But I also feel terrible for the people the comment offended.” But who Thom Brennaman is isn’t really an issue here; the fact that he’s comfortable bandying about slurs at work is.
“An open mic is the biggest enemy you have. You always have to be conscious that the microphone could be open. The worst feeling in the world, if you’re not on the air, is that you say something and you hear it coming back into your headset,” Marty said.