Background and career
Kevin Robert Harlan (born June 21, 1960) is an American television and radio sports announcer, and a three-time National Sportscaster of the Year as voted by his peers. The son of former Green Bay Packers President and CEO Bob Harlan, he broadcasts NFL and college basketball games on CBS, as well as NBA games on Prime Video. He previously worked NBA games for TNT Sports from 1996 to 2025. The 2026 season will be his 42nd consecutive season doing NFL play-by-play, and 2026–27 will be his 40th year doing NBA play-by-play. He has also been the lead NFL radio voice nationally for Westwood One and Monday Night Football since 2009. On that platform, he has broadcast 16 consecutive Super Bowls, the most in radio or television history. Overall, he is third all time in the total number of network television sports broadcasts for which he has done play-by-play calling for one of the four major sports in the U.S. Harlan has also broadcast more than 500 NFL games on network TV, putting him in the top 10 all time, joining names like Al Michaels and Pat Summerall, for play-by-play. Until 2008, Harlan was the voice of Westwood One Radio's Final Four coverage of the NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament. In 2009, he began serving as Westwood One's lead announcer for Monday Night Football, calling his first Super Bowl in Super Bowl XLV. Super Bowl LX was his 16th consecutive Super Bowl for Westwood One (Super Bowls XLV–LX), the most consecutively in radio and television network history. Harlan also broadcast the CBS HD feed of Super Bowl XXXV in 2001. He also calls the preseason games of his hometown Green Bay Packers for the team's statewide television network since 2003. He is one of three broadcasters to have more than 3,000 career national TV network broadcasts of the four major professional sports, along with Dick Stockton and Marv Albert. He has broadcast the most NBA games for TNT in his 30 years with the network. He has been with Westwood One for over two decades.
Harlan began broadcasting as a teenager for his alma mater Our Lady of Premontre High School's high school radio station, WGBP-FM, calling play-by-play for the school's boys' basketball, football and ice hockey teams. He was inducted into the school's Hall of Fame in 2019. He was a ball boy with the Green Bay Packers in his teens during the time that his father, Bob Harlan, was a Packers executive in the front office. He had originally pursued attending either the University of Wisconsin–Madison or the University of Notre Dame in pursuit of his communications/mass media degree, but a personal recommendation from broadcaster Gary Bender to his dad Bob led Kevin to instead attend the University of Kansas and its School of Journalism and Mass Communications. Harlan was introduced to the Jayhawks' primary basketball play-by-play announcer at the time, Tom Hedrick, who noted Harlan's zeal for sports broadcasting and immediately considered him a protégé in the making. Hedrick gave Harlan a sideline position his freshman year, eventually deeming him as his understudy and fill-in announcer on days when he had other commitments. Harlan graduated in 1982 with a broadcast journalism degree. During his time in Kansas, he was a member of the Sigma Chi fraternity. In 1982, right out of college, at age 22, Harlan became the TV and radio voice of the NBA's Kansas City Kings (now the Sacramento Kings). He was then a basketball announcer for his alma mater, the University of Kansas, for one year, then went on to call games for the NFL's Kansas City Chiefs from 1985 to 1993 after several years hosting and producing surrounding pre-game and post-game programming while still in college. Harlan also split time with the University of Missouri (1986–89) calling football and basketball games and worked as the play-by-play voice of the NBA's Minnesota Timberwolves for nine seasons (1989–98). On the network level, Harlan called NFL football for NBC in 1991, college football for ESPN in 1992–93, NFL for Fox from 1994 to 1997 and joined Turner Sports in 1996 to broadcast NBA playoff games (he would begin calling games throughout the entire season in 1997, which he continues to do to this day). Harlan broadcast his first NBA All Star game for TNT in 2022, as well as the Western and Eastern Conference Finals. He has been the longest running NBA play by play announcer for TNT in their 39-year history broadcasting the NBA. He has broadcast more NBA games for TNT than any other announcer. He began working for CBS in 1998 after four years at FOX. Following TNT's loss of NBA rights, Harlan joined Prime Video. In addition, Harlan has called Jacksonville Jaguars, Chicago Bears, and Green Bay Packers preseason games; boxing for Mike Tyson vs. Buster Mathis Jr. in 1995; basketball games during the now-defunct Goodwill Games, which were owned by Time Warner; college sports on ESPN; and several bowl games during college football seasons. Harlan has also lent his voice on the NBA 2K video game series since 2005. In 2017, Harlan was voted by his peers as National Sportscaster of the Year by the NSMA. He again was voted National Sportscaster of the Year by the NSMA in 2019. He was also named 2019 National Sportscaster of the Year by The Athletic. In September 2019, Harlan was inducted into the Notre Dame Academy High School Hall of Fame (the former Premontre HS he attended in Green Bay, Wisconsin). He was again voted National Sportscaster of the Year in 2023.
Harlan has a history of injecting humor into situations during games whenever he can, in addition to being able to dramatize even mundane moments not related to the game itself.
March 13, 1999 - Working his first NCAA Tournament for CBS, Harlan was assigned first and second round games in the West Region, played in Seattle. Assigned to the region was then unknown Gonzaga University, a 10-seed. After upsetting Stanford, a 2-seed, in the second round, he exclaimed: "For little Gonzaga University, dreams do come true!" May 12, 2008 – Harlan was the play-by-play announcer for TNT's coverage of the NBA second-round playoff game between the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Boston Celtics. Boston led the series 2–1, and Cleveland was leading game four 82–75, when LeBron James drove the lane and finished with a vicious dunk, leading Harlan to exclaim: "LeBron James with no regard for human life!" December 16, 2010 – Harlan called the game between the San Antonio Spurs and the Denver Nuggets on TNT. With about a second left into the first period, J. R. Smith ran with a two-handed dunk above Gary Neal and hanged from the rim; in the moment, Harlan exclaimed: "J. R. Smith! We just saw a man fly! Ride em', cowboy! What a play!" May 12, 2019 - Harlan was the play-by-play announcer for TNT's coverage of Game 7 of the NBA Eastern Conference semifinals between the Philadelphia 76ers and the Toronto Raptors. The game was tied at 90, and Toronto had possession with 4.2 seconds left. Kawhi Leonard received the ball and shot a dramatic buzzer beater that bounced off the rim four times before dropping in, winning the game and the series for Toronto. When the ball fell through the rim, Harlan yelled, “OHHHH!”, in disbelief. It was the first ever (and, as of July 2026, the only) Game 7 series-ending buzzer beater in NBA history.It's off to Leonard, defended by Simmons... is this the dagger? (Pause as the ball bounces four times before going in) Game! Series! Toronto has won! March 16, 2023 - During the 2023 NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament Harlan was on the call, along with Dan Bonner and Stan Van Gundy when #13 Furman scored a go-ahead 3-pointer over #4 Virginia in the Round of 64 with 2.2 seconds to go due to a rogue pass from Virginia's Kihei Clark to Furman's Garrett Hien. Furman would win the game 68–67, giving them a win in their first tournament game since 1980. Video of Harlan making the call later went viral."Clark in a straight-jacket-- He threw it away! (Bonner: "Oh, he didn't mean to do that!") He threw it away! Hien, [JP] Pegues! Good! Furman leads! Timeout, Virginia! (long pause) Did we just see what we think we just saw? Wow!
May 12, 2024 - During Game 4 of the second round playoff series between the Denver Nuggets and the Minnesota Timberwolves Harlan made a call just as the halftime buzzer was sounding. The play resulted from a quick inbound attempt by a Minnesota player from underneath his basket with 1.6 seconds remaining on the clock. Jamal Murray of the Nuggets stepped in front of the pass for the steal and attempted a buzzer beater from about 10 feet beyond the half court line, right near the sideline where Harlan and his analyst Reggie Miller were seated. The shot's high angle allowed Harlan enough time to make a call that quickly went viral along with Murray's reaction to Harlan's call. The call was:
"That's intercepted. Murray, good if it goes... Got it! Got it! Got it! A big-time three! Oh, what a shot!" As Harlan repeatedly yelled "Got it" he stood up from his seat and leaned toward the court where Jamal Murray had turned to hear the call with a look of fierce determination. They stared at each other from just across the announcer's table as Harlan finished the call until Murray's teammates took him away to celebrate the play. The video of the shot, stare-down, and call quickly became a major sensation on television and social media.
