Mike Tirico's unprecedented February: Super Bowl and Olympics host

Mike Tirico doesn’t have many firsts left in what has been an extraordinary broadcast career.

However, this isn’t a normal February for Tirico.

On Sunday, Tirico will call his first Super Bowl. Immediately following the conclusion of the Seattle-New England game, Tirico will transition to his role as NBC’s primetime host for Olympic coverage. That will make Tirico the first to call a Super Bowl and serve as the main Olympic host in the same year.

“Nothing can match this winter. You don’t even think about dreaming of doing something like this because it’s stupid to think that this is reality. But I’m so excited for it and very blessed to be a part of it,” Tirico said.

Tirico’s unique February began Sunday, when he called a Los Angeles Lakers-New York Knicks game at Madison Square Garden to launch NBC’s “Sunday Night Basketball” package. The NBA returned to NBC this season for the first time since 2022.

It is the third time NBC has had the Winter Games and the Super Bowl in the same year, but only the second time both have overlapped on the same Sunday.

When the Patriots faced the Philadelphia Eagles in Super Bowl 52, the opening ceremony for the PyeongChang Games was five days away. Tirico did a remote hit from South Korea during the Super Bowl pregame show.

Tirico was the Super Bowl pregame host in 2022 when the game was in Los Angeles. After the presentation of the Vince Lombardi Trophy to the Rams, he did the Olympic primetime show from a set outside the stadium.

"For him to have this moment in time where he’s going to do the Super Bowl, he’s going to be the lead voice in the Olympics, he’s going to be the lead voice in the NBA — I can barely keep these two teams straight in my mind. How he keeps all of that inside that computer brain of his, I have no idea, but there’s nobody like him,” said Cris Collinsworth, who will be doing his sixth Super Bowl as an analyst.

Tirico becomes the 13th announcer to handle play-by-play duties for a Super Bowl, and the fourth to do it for NBC. Dick Enberg called eight of NBC’s 20 previous Super Bowls, while Curt Gowdy did seven, and Al Michaels called the last five.

One reason Tirico left ESPN for NBC in 2016 was the chance to eventually do a Super Bowl. Tirico was the voice of “Monday Night Football” from 2006 through ’15, but it wasn’t until the NFL’s current broadcast contracts began in 2023 that ESPN joined the rotation of Super Bowl broadcasters. ESPN will have next year’s game.

Sunday will be Tirico’s 290th NFL game, excluding preseason, according to NBC.

“I think if you call one (NFL game), you hope that this is one that you get to call eventually, and that opportunity is not lost on me. I’m extraordinarily grateful to all the people who’ve helped me get to this point,” he said. “We all work towards things in life, and maybe once we get there, we don’t appreciate the view. So just try to be part of this in a different, more magnetic way to make sure that these images, these days, stick. Just to enjoy it."

Even with extra time to prepare, Tirico has used the same approach as always. As soon as Seattle defeated San Francisco in the NFC championship game on Jan. 25, he was in his office, getting his game charts together and analyzing the backup quarterbacks.

Tirico will have plenty of storylines for Sunday, from Mike Vrabel turning around the Patriots in his first year as coach to quarterback Sam Darnold leading Seattle to the Super Bowl after signing as a free agent from Minnesota.

No matter how the game goes, producer Rob Hyland is confident Tirico will paint the perfect picture. Hyland pointed to Tirico telling the story of Baltimore rookie kicker Tyler Loop leading into a last-minute kick during the regular-season finale at Pittsburgh, without videotape, as evidence of Tirico’s performance.

“I think Mike has become, in my opinion, the best storyteller in live television. He told that kicker story in 25 seconds, and you really understood a lot about him, a lot about the Ravens organization, why they moved on from Justin Tucker,” Hyland said. “I think Mike’s ability to tell stories has only gotten better every single year since he’s been a part of NBC, and I think that’s an area where he is the best at what he does.”

As soon as Sunday night’s Olympic show ends, Tirico will join a group of NBC personnel on a plane from Northern California to Italy. He is expected to begin reporting from Milan during Tuesday’s daytime coverage.

Besides Tirico, Gowdy, Greg Gumbel, and Jim Nantz have also done the Super Bowl and served as Olympic primetime hosts. The other three, though, didn’t do it the same year.

This will be Tirico’s fifth Olympics as primetime host and his third for a Winter Games. Before joining NBC, he covered the FIFA World Cups and UEFA European Championships for ESPN. Those month-long events helped shape how he approaches the hectic pace of the 16 days of the Olympics.

“Usually when I get to Olympics or World Cups, I’ve found myself on a really good schedule, getting your daily routine dialed in and just maintaining that because I think it maintains your sanity. Your sleep isn’t too long, but it’s quality sleep, you get a workout, and you get good meals, and you find the comforts that you need, and you make your way through it.”

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FILE - Sportscaster Mike Tirico is seen during an NFL football game, Oct. 12, 2025, in Kansas City, Mo. (AP Photo/Ed Zurga, File)

Thirty-one families that lost relatives in two fatal crashes of Boeing 737 Max jetliners asked a federal appeals court on Thursday to revive a criminal case against the aircraft manufacturer.

Paul Cassell, a lawyer for the families, urged a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn a lower court's dismissal of a criminal conspiracy charge Boeing faced for allegedly misleading Federal Aviation Administration regulators about a flight-control system tied to the crashes, which killed 346 people.

The dismissal came at the request of the U.S. government after it reached a deal with Boeing that allowed the company to avoid prosecution in exchange for paying or investing an additional $1.1 billion in fines, compensation for victims’ families, and internal safety and quality measures.

Cassell said Thursday that federal prosecutors violated the families’ rights by failing to properly consult them before striking the deal and shutting them out of the process.

Federal prosecutors countered that, for years, the government, “has solicited and weighed the views of the crash victims’ families as it’s decided whether and how to prosecute the Boeing Company.”

More than a dozen family members attended Thursday's hearing in New Orleans, and Cassell said many more “around the globe" listened to a livestream of the arguments.

“I feel that there wouldn't be meaningful accountability without a trial,” Paul Njoroge said in a statement after the hearing. Njoroge, who lives in Canada, lost his entire family in the second of the two crashes — his wife, Carolyne, their children, ages 6, 4 and 9 months, and his mother-in-law.

All passengers and crew died when the 737 Max jets crashed less than five months apart in 2018 and 2019 — a Lion Air flight that plunged into the sea off the coast of Indonesia and an Ethiopian Airlines flight that crashed into a field shortly after takeoff.

U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor in Texas, who oversaw the case for years, issued a written decision in November that described the families’ arguments as compelling. But O'Connor said case law prevented him from blocking the dismissal motion simply because he disagreed with the government’s view that the deal with Boeing served the public interest.

The judge also concluded that federal prosecutors hadn’t acted in bad faith, had explained their decision and had met their obligations under the Crime Victims’ Rights Act.

In the case of its deal with Boeing, the Justice Department had argued that given the possibility a jury might acquit the company, taking the case to trial carried a risk that Boeing would be spared any further punishment.

Boeing attorney Paul Clement said Thursday that more than 60 families of crash victims "affirmatively supported” the deal and dozens more did not oppose it.

“Boeing deeply regrets” the tragic crashes, Clement said, and “has taken extraordinary steps to improve its internal processes and has paid substantial compensation" to the victims' families.

The appeals court panel that heard the arguments said it would issue a decision at a later date.

The criminal case took many twists and turns after the Justice Department first charged Boeing in 2021 with defrauding the government but agreed not to prosecute if the company paid a settlement and took steps to comply with anti-fraud laws.

However, federal prosecutors determined in 2024 that Boeing had violated the agreement, and the company agreed to plead guilty to the charge. O’Connor later rejected that plea deal, however, and directed the two sides to resume negotiations. The Justice Department returned last year with the new deal and its request to withdraw the criminal charge.

The case centered around a software system that Boeing developed for the 737 Max, which airlines began flying in 2017. The plane was Boeing’s answer to a new, more fuel-efficient model from European rival Airbus, and Boeing billed it as an updated 737 that wouldn’t require much additional pilot training.

But the Max did include significant changes, some of which Boeing downplayed — most notably, the addition of an automated flight-control system designed to help account for the plane’s larger engines. Boeing didn’t mention the system in airplane manuals, and most pilots didn’t know about it.

In both of the deadly crashes, that software pitched the nose of the plane down repeatedly based on faulty readings from a single sensor, and pilots flying for Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines were unable to regain control. After the Ethiopia crash, the planes were grounded worldwide for 20 months.

Investigators found that Boeing did not inform key Federal Aviation Administration personnel about changes it had made to the software before regulators set pilot training requirements for the Max and certified the airliner for flight.

FILE - The Boeing logo is displayed at the company's factory, Sept. 24, 2024, in Renton, Wash. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson, File)

FILE - A family member wears a photo of Boeing crash victim Danielle Moore before a hearing at federal court in Fort Worth, Texas, Sept. 3, 2025. (AP Photo/LM Otero, File)