Bill Mazer: Pioneering American Sportscaster and Broadcaster

Career highlights

Mazer covered many major American sports and worked for a range of national and local outlets. Notable assignments included:

• National Hockey League coverage as a color commentator and studio host, bringing analysis and background to televised NHL broadcasts.
• Play-by-play for professional football on CBS and support roles during National Football League broadcasts.
• Basketball coverage of the American Basketball Association in its years of national attention.
• Major League Baseball work, including serving as one of the radio voices for the Milwaukee Braves.
• Golf tournament coverage for major networks such as CBS and NBC, where his announcing added context to telecasts of professional events.
• Longstanding local television work as a sports anchor at WNEW-TV, where he spent nearly two decades, and co-hosting the program Sports Extra with Lee Leonard.

Broadcasting style and significance

Mazer's approach combined clear play-by-play delivery with an informed conversational style suited to studio analysis and talk-format radio. His early sports-talk program anticipated a format that would later become ubiquitous: audience interaction, interviews, and extended discussion of games and issues beyond the box score. For many listeners and viewers of the era, his voice became synonymous with straightforward, encyclopedic sports knowledge delivered in a relaxed manner.

Other media work

Beyond sports, Mazer also worked in general broadcasting and commercial voice-over. He filled in for television personality Hugh Downs on the game show Concentration and briefly hosted the quiz program Reach for the Stars. In the 1960s and 1970s he did extensive voice-over and voice-over commercial work, lending his recognizable tone to many commercial campaigns for products ranging from cigarettes to consumer goods, including campaigns for companies such as Kodak and advertising for brands like Trident chewing gum.

Awards, recognition and legacy

Mazer received multiple honors during and after his active career. He was named New York Sportscaster of the Year by the National Sportscasters and Sportswriters Association three consecutive times (1964–1966), reflecting his prominence in a major U.S. media market. Later acknowledgments included induction into the National Jewish Sports Hall of Fame and Museum and the Buffalo Broadcasters Association Hall of Fame, testaments to both his professional achievements and his regional impact.

Personal notes and passing

Bill Mazer remained a respected figure among colleagues and listeners for his breadth of work and longevity in the field. He died on October 23, 2013 at a hospital in Danbury, Connecticut, at the age of 92. His career is often cited in histories of sports broadcasting for its early adoption of talk-radio formats and for the variety of roles he performed across sports media.

Selected career roles:

• WNBC (AM) sports-talk host (March 1964—)
• NHL color commentator and studio host
• CBS NFL play-by-play announcer
• ABA basketball broadcaster
• Major League Baseball announcer for the Milwaukee Braves
• Golf telecasts for CBS and NBC
• Longtime sports anchor at WNEW-TV and co-host of Sports Extra

Mazer's work illustrates the mid-20th-century evolution of sports media, when broadcasters crossed between radio and television, commercial work and game coverage, helping establish formats and standards that shaped later generations of sportscasters.