Chris Fowler is remaining with ESPN amid company layoffs.
But his four-year contract extension with the Worldwide Leader comes with a new challenge: calling NFL games.
“You look for new challenges and new reasons to kind of stay energized,” Fowler told The Athletic. “I am grateful to do my two favorite sports in college football and tennis, and the NFL is football at the highest level. I’ve been an NFL fan for a long time.”
The longtime announcer will continue to be ESPN’s top lead college football and Grand Slam tennis play-by-play announcer.
As first reported by The Post’s Andrew Marchand in May, Fowler will take over for Steve Levy in ESPN’s No. 2 “Monday Night Football” booth with Dan Orlovsky and Louis Riddick this season.
Fowler, 61, has been with ESPN since 1986 and will call five games as part of the trio.
He previously hosted “College GameDay” from 1990 to 2014, when he became the network’s top college football announcer, working alongside Kirk Herbstreit, who has made the jump to calling NFL games as part of Amazon Prime Video’s “Thursday Night Football” package.
It’s a different situation when it comes to the pro game, something Fowler learned when he called NFL games for ESPN in 2020 and again in 2021.
“I’ve done a grand total of two NFL games, both of them extremely challenging preparation situations,” Fowler said, per The Athletic. “One of them was the day after the U.S. Open finals in 2020 (Steelers-Giants) at an empty stadium. The other one was two days before the (college football) national championship game in Indy when Kirk Herbstreit and I called Chiefs-Broncos in 2022.”
“I don’t want people to take this the wrong way, but if you’ve done years and years of calling college football, the NFL, although it’s challenging and different, is in some ways easier. The players involved are far fewer and the support system to get you ready to call an NFL game from the league and ESPN is spectacular.”
Fowler’s contract became official after a wave of layoffs at ESPN, which saw more than 15 on-air talents — including big names like Jeff Van Gundy, Max Kellerman and Keyshawn Johnson — depart in a major cost-cutting effort.