Fox’s Kevin Burkhardt grew up an Eagles fan. Now he’s calling a Birds Super Bowl

PHOENIX — Sunday night, over 100 million television viewers will be introduced to Kevin Burkhardt, the affable Fox Sports announcer who will be calling Super Bowl LVII between the Eagles and Kansas City Chiefs.

Everything about Burkhardt sitting in the booth at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Ariz., Sunday seems unlikely. It took Joe Buck leaving Fox as part of a crazy offseason broadcasting shuffle for Burkhardt to finally move up to the No. 1 booth. It took him working as a car salesman in his late 20s to help make ends meet to continue his broadcasting career. And perhaps most unlikely of all, he grew up deep in New York Giants country in northern New Jersey rooting for the Eagles.

“The little kid in me would not even know how to handle this,” Burkhardt told The Inquirer ahead of Sunday’s broadcast. “The fact that the team I grew up with is the first Super Bowl I’m doing, I mean I’d be crazy not to enjoy that.”

Burkhardt, 49, was born and raised in Bloomfield, N.J., and grew up watching football with his parents, both of whom were die-hard Giants fans. So what caused him to buck the family trend and root for the hated Eagles?

The J.C. Penney Co. catalog.

“There were these things called NFL Huddles, little stuffed animal mascots, that were in the catalog. I loved the Eagles one,” Burkhardt told The Inquirer. “There was no DirecTV back then, so when the Eagles played the Giants, I would watch. I was a huge Ron Jaworski fan, even through I would watch Lawrence Taylor sacking him.”

“So I loved football, then I loved the stuffed animal, then I loved Ron Jaworski, and then boom, there it is. Eagles fan,” Burkhardt added. “Once you make that selection as a kid, you stick with it for life.”

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Just about everyone in broadcasting has a different story about how they made it, but Burkhardt’s might be the most unique.

After graduating from William Paterson University in the late 1990s, he got a job broadcasting local news and calling high school football games at WGHT-AM 1500. He also called games for the New Jersey Jackals, a small professional baseball team that plays in Paterson.

But several years went by, and, unable to get a better broadcasting gig, Burkhardt was forced to take a job as a car salesperson at Pine Belt Chevy in Lakewood, N.J., to help make ends meet.

He also did work in Philadelphia for the station formally known as CN8, creating segments on high school sports for Out of Bounds, which was hosted by current Phillies broadcaster Gregg Murphy.

“I’d have to come up with a story of interest or a package, sign out a camera, and put together a feature. I’d intro the piece and Gregg would put together the show,” Burkhardt said. “Essentially, it was my first TV work, because I was more of a radio guy.”

Burkhardt was eventually able to land some shifts at WCBS Newsradio 880, which got him on the radar of 94.1 WIP sister station WFAN in New York City, where he landed a gig as the station’s New York Jets reporter. Eventually he ended up at SportsNet New York, where he made a name for himself as a New York Mets reporter — and became a spokesperson for the car dealership he once worked for.

But Burkhardt wanted to do football, and eventually landed a radio gig calling the 2009 Texas Bowl on New Year’s Eve between Missouri and Navy for Compass Media Networks. That led to more college football assignments and eventually a job calling Dallas Cowboys games on the radio for two seasons from 2011 to 2012.

That finally opened the door for him at Fox Sports, which hired Burkhardt as a full-time NFL announcer in 2013. Ten seasons later, he’s calling his first Super Bowl, becoming just the third play-by-play announcer to call the big game for Fox (Pat Summerall called three Super Bowls for the network, while Buck was the voice of six).

And he’s set to become the first play-by-play announcer not named Buck, Jim Nantz, or Al Michaels to call a Super Bowl in nearly 20 years.

“Kevin has a great sense of himself. That’s rule number one for announcers — you know who you are, then you can be who you are,” said Richie Zyontz, the lead producer for Fox’s Super Bowl broadcast. “He’s prepared with a million things, 90% of which probably never sees the light of day. He just knows how to roll with the game as it unfolds.”

Sunday will also be Greg Olsen’s first Super Bowl as a broadcaster. The former Carolina Panthers tight end is in his second year calling games for Fox after retiring from the NFL in 2021. Like Burkhardt, an unexpected exit by Troy Aikman from the only network he’d ever worked for allowed Olsen to suddenly land in the network’s No. 1 booth.

Against all odds, the duo have received high marks from sports media pundits and notoriously difficult-to-please Philly sports fans alike during their Eagles broadcasts this season, including last month’s NFC Championship game, where they managed to keep a blowout of the San Francisco 49ers entertaining and engaging.

“They both have a sense of the game, and I think both are really good at not fighting the crowd when the moment gets big and the noise builds to a crescendo,” Zyontz said. “Greg is like full speed ahead. He’s got so many things to say, he sees so much. Kevin just keeps the train on the track.”

It helps that their relationship dates all the way back to northern New Jersey. Burkhardt, then working for WGHT, would call Olsen’s high school football games in Wayne, N.J. When Olsen came to Fox to audition for a role as a NFL analyst, it was Burkhardt who called the test game alongside him.

“I was just amazed. I thought he had such a knack for it, and it’s not an easy thing to call a taped game off a monitor,” Burkhardt said. “I swear, I felt like he could’ve done a game that weekend. ... No disrespect to anyone else, but I don’t think I’ve ever felt that way about anyone else I auditioned.”

In two years, Fox is set to broadcast Super Bowl LIX from New Orleans, and unless something crazy happens, Burkhardt will be in the booth calling the game. But instead of Olsen, he could be sitting alongside seven-time Super Bowl champion Tom Brady, who announced last week he plans to join Fox Sports beginning with the 2024 season.

That’s a long way off, of course, and anything could happen. It also means Burkhardt and Olsen will get another year together in the booth next season, where you can expect them to be calling their fair share of Eagles games.

“I’m really happy for Kevin and Greg that they have this opportunity [next season]. It’s been a really good year,” said Rich Russo, a Penn State graduate who will work his fifth Super Bowl for Fox as lead director. “Kevin really understands the moment. He knows when to lay out and let the pictures take care of themselves. And his relationship with Greg is real.”

For now, Burkhardt is trying his best to soak everything in. When he was in Philadelphia two weeks ago to call the NFC Championship, he took a moment before the game to look around Lincoln Financial Field and reflect on the unlikely path a young Eagles fan from Bloomfield took to get there.

“Damn right I took it all in,” Burkhardt said. “I’m going to walk around Sunday and do the same thing. Because if you don’t do that and you don’t enjoy it, then what are you doing?”

The Eagles are one win away from their second championship. Join Inquirer Eagles writers EJ Smith, Josh Tolentino, Jeff McLane, Marcus Hayes and Mike Sielski on Gameday Central Sunday at 5 p.m. as they preview the game at inquirer.com/Eaglesgameday