Ari Wolfe

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Ari Michael Wolfe (born January 7, 1971) is an American sportscaster. He currently calls events for ESPN, Stadium Network, Tennis Channel, the Kansas City Chiefs, Pac-12 Networks, and NBC Sports. Additionally, he serves as an anchor and reporter for the NFL Network. Wolfe is a 2-time NBC Sports Olympic broadcaster and a 2-time Emmy award winner for his work in college sports.

Early life and career[]

Wolfe was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and raised in Madison, Wisconsin. He currently resides in Los Angeles, California. Wolfe graduated from Emory University in 1994. He later earned his master's degree at USC. As a student Wolfe did both play-by-play and color commentary for the Trojans' basketball, football, and baseball teams on KSCR (104.7 FM) in Los Angeles. He also hosted the sports talk show, Blackjack and the Wolfe Attack.

Before moving into commentary, Wolfe worked out of Los Angeles as a Highlight Coordinator, creating highlight packages of NFL football games for Fox NFL Sunday. He held similar responsibilities for Fox’s coverage of the NHL and MLB.

Broadcasting career[]

Since graduating from USC in 1997, Wolfe has called games in college and professional sports. He currently calls events for NFL Network, ESPN, the Kansas City Chiefs, CBS Sports Network, Tennis Channel, Pac-12 Networks, NBC Sports and Stadium Network. Since 2009, Wolfe also serves as an anchor and reporter for NFL Network. He is a two-time Emmy winner.

Beginning in 2019, Wolfe is the play-by-play announcer for the Kansas City Chiefs preseason games. He previously has called preseason games for the Philadelphia Eagles in 2005 and for the Minnesota Vikings from 2007-2011. For the 2014 NFL preseason, Wolfe called games with Kurt Warner for NFL Network broadcasts.

Wolfe currently calls college football and college basketball for ESPN and Stadium Network with games airing on Facebook. He joined Stadium in 2014 and his primary role is calling Mountain West Conference games. 2009 marked the beginning of Wolfe's work for the Mtn. and BTN. Wolfe would serve as play-by-play for football, and men's basketball games. .^[1] Wolfe would leave BTN after the 2010 season, but Wolfe's work with the Mountain West Conference continued until the network ceased operations in 2012. Wolfe has also called Mountain West football games for Root Sports and the Mountain West Network. Wolfe won his 2nd Emmy for his work during the 2014 Mountain West college football season on Root Sports.

Wolfe began calling tennis for the Tennis Channel in 2017 and at the start of 2019, he agreed to a long-term contract to work at Tennis Channel thru 2022. For the 2019 Mountain West Tennis Championships, Wolfe served as the analyst on the Mountain West Digital Network.

In 1998, Wolfe began his play-by-play career as the voice of the Albany Firebirds. He would serve in that role for six seasons. When the Firebirds left the Arena Football League (AFL), Wolfe was hired to be the play-by-play voice for the Philadelphia Soul, where he would remain until 2008. Wolfe has always been synonymous with the AFL. Leading up to 2018 season Wolfe called arena games for CBS Sports Network, OLN, ESPN, Versus and NFL Network.^[2] ref>"AFL, CBS Sports Network Announce On-Air Talent Lineup for 2013 Season". Arena Pigskin. 2013-03-12. Archived from the original on 2013-07-18. Retrieved 2013-03-12.</ref>

While Wolfe has built up his play-by-play talent with the AFL, it is his college work that began to get him noticed. From 2005 to 2009 Wolfe was the play-by-play man for Louisville Cardinals football and men's basketball games. It was while working with the Cardinals in 2005 that Wolfe won his first Sports Emmy for Outstanding Play-by-Play and his overall composite work.^[3] In addition to play-by-play at Louisville, Wolfe also hosted Courtside with Rick Pitino and Kickoff with Coach K.

Wolfe's impressive resume lead ESPN to hire him as the play-by-play man for the Madden Challenge in 2007, shown on Super Bowl Sunday on ESPN2. He was also hired as one of their play-by-play men for the Big East Conference.

In 2009, Wolfe was hired by Universal Sports. Wolfe was hired to be the voice of many events. These events included the World Cup of Rowing, the Women's World Ice Championships, and the World Table Tennis Championships. His work at Universal led NBC Sports to use him as their play-by-play man for table tennis at the 2012 Summer Olympics. Wolfe returned in 2016 to call Table Tennis for the Rio Olympics, this led to him calling the Women's Table Tennis World Cup on ESPN in the fall of 2016.^[4]

Wolfe's work is so popular, that he is one of a very few number of announcers to have worked for 4 major sports networks in one year. During 2014, he worked for NFL Network, ESPN, CBS, Root Sports, Time Warner Cable Sports Net, Campus Insiders and the Mountain West Network.

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