What was Jason Benetti's connection to NPR early in his broadcasting career?
When Jason Benetti first went on the air at Syracuse University's student radio station in 2003, his lead-in was the NPR News with Carl Castle — because that station is, in fact, an NPR affiliate. The same station had already launched the careers of legendary sportscasters including Bob Costas, Marv Albert, and Sean McDonough, making Benetti's NPR connection both accidental and historically significant.
Benetti shared this detail on Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! during a conversation recorded at the Studebaker Theatre in Chicago, when host Peter Sagal asked him how he realized he had the voice and the talent for broadcasting. Rather than pointing to a single moment of self-discovery, Benetti highlighted the institutional lineage of Syracuse's student station — a place where the line between sports broadcasting and public radio quietly overlapped from his very first broadcast.
The detail is a neat full-circle moment: Benetti, who went on to call games for the Chicago White Sox and the Detroit Tigers before becoming the Sunday Night Baseball play-by-play voice on NBC in 2026, traces his on-air debut directly to a network most people associate with news, not sports.
"There's actually a Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me tie to my college days, because the student radio station where all of these famous sportscasters came through — Bob Costas, Marv Albert, Sean McDonough — it's an NPR station."
— Jason Benetti, on Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!
About Jason Benetti
Jason Benetti grew up in Chicago and set his sights on sports broadcasting early — famously writing an essay as a third grader declaring he wanted to be the announcer for the White Sox, a goal he eventually achieved. He began his on-air career in 2003 at Syracuse University's student radio station, a program that had already produced Bob Costas, Marv Albert, and Sean McDonough, and whose NPR affiliation meant Benetti's very first broadcast was preceded by the NPR News with Carl Castle.
Benetti has a mild case of cerebral palsy, which shaped his path to broadcasting in an unexpected way: attempting to march with a tuba in his high school band proved impractical, and his band director's solution was to hand him a microphone to announce the band's sets instead — an early sign that his voice was the instrument.
He spent many years as the play-by-play voice of the Chicago White Sox, then moved to the Detroit Tigers, before landing the highest-profile role of his career in 2026: Sunday Night Baseball on NBC, making him one of the most recognizable voices in national baseball broadcasting.
See also
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