Dan Hicks once viewed 30 years at NBC Sports as an almost unbelievable career landmark. Now, as he arrives at another major milestone with the network, the veteran broadcaster says the longevity feels even more extraordinary.
Hicks will open his 35th season with NBC on Sunday night, calling Notre Dame’s matchup against Wisconsin at Lambeau Field in Green Bay.
“I’m incredibly lucky to stay at one place this long. It takes a lot of things going your way as far as NBC continuing to have the properties that I’ve been a part of through the years,” Hicks said. “So lots of variables, lots of things that can happen in your career. But I think I appreciate it more and more the longer it’s been.”
While he remains a familiar voice on Notre Dame football broadcasts, Hicks is perhaps most closely associated with NBC’s golf coverage, along with his prominent Olympic work in swimming and skiing.
Over more than three decades, Hicks has grown into one of NBC Sports’ most dependable play-by-play announcers — a role he had not held before joining the network in 1992 following a three-year stint at CNN.
His first play-by-play assignments came on regional NFL broadcasts from 1992 through 1997, when NBC held rights to the AFC package. During that six-season run, Hicks worked alongside a wide range of analysts, including Joe Namath, Joe Gibbs, Jim Kelly, Bob Trumpy and Cris Collinsworth.
“It was always a dream of mine, that was always the goal, but all I had ever done was studio. So when I got to NBC, I was the last guy on the depth chart and I’d always have the newest analyst to break in,” Hicks said. “I think it helps you to work with a bunch of different people. You work with different styles, and as a play-by-play guy, you learn to work them into the telecast because they’re all different. That’s what makes it fun.”
Looking ahead, the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics are set to mark the ninth Games in which Hicks will call swimming alongside Rowdy Gaines. Together, the longtime NBC duo narrated Michael Phelps’ historic eight-gold-medal performance at the 2008 Beijing Olympics and Katie Ledecky’s 14-medal run across four Olympics from 2012 to 2024.
Hicks credited Phelps for swimming’s popularity beyond once every year years.
“He put swimming on the map in this country and he made it appointment television at the Olympics to watch swimming. Not that anybody didn’t care about swimming before he came around, but he brought it to a whole other level,” Hicks said. “Rowdy will tell you that he does more events now outside of the Olympics during the course of the calendar year than he ever dreamt that he would do. And the reason is Michael Phelps.”
Golf, though, remains Hicks’s favorite sport. He has been on the call for 27 tournament victories by Tiger Woods, including three at the U.S. Open.
Hicks also has called the Ryder Cup, PGA Tour and British Open.
“It’s the sport that I just think is the most intriguing to me as far as the drama that it is able to produce with one person trying to win a big championship coming down to the final nine holes,” he said. “A lot of that stems from my love for the sport and also the crew that we’ve had for so long.”
This will be Hicks’ seventh season calling Notre Dame games. He did it from 2013-16 before returning in 2024.
He has called his share of Shamrock Series neutral-site games, but the setting inside Lambeau Field could be one of the best yet.
“Notre Dame and Wisconsin at Lambeau Field is big enough as it is, but to kind of have its own little spot on Sunday night makes it even more special,” Hicks said. “I can’t imagine a better way to kick off 35 than this. I’ve been looking forward to this game for a long, long time. And again, it’s another one of those moments in your NBC career where you kind of pinch yourself and say: ‘Boy, they pay me to do this? This is off-the-charts stuff.’”
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