NEWSLETTER
The Chicago Bears might be a team in transition, but some much-appreciated continuity is coming by way of the broadcast booth.
Because even though the Bears will have a new radio home starting in 2023 with ESPN 1000 getting the broadcast rights, the voices on the call will be familiar ones as Jeff Joniak and Tom Thayer return for yet another season of Chicago football:
Changes on the horizon are all the rage when it comes to the Bears. That is to be expected when your franchise grinds through a 3-win season, has nearly $100 million in space under the cap a bunch of needs at various positions, and owns the first overall pick in the upcoming NFL Draft. However, not everything is changing around Halas Hall. But at least the broadcast tandem of Joniak and Thayer are sticking around through to take us into a new era of Bears football.
Joniak has been the Bears’ play-by-play vice since the start of the 2001 season. Thayer has been in the booth in Chicago since 1997 when he was teaming with Wayne Larrivee and Hub Arkush. The Joniak-Thayer duo has been working together since the start of the 2005 campaign. That 1-2 punch has seen some of the best of times (a run to a Super Bowl appearance in 2006, a surprisingly fun year in 2018) and worst of times (the debacle that was the Trestman era, last year’s 14-loss slog). And they’ll be around as things begin anew on ESPN-1000. Here’s hoping there are more years like 2005, 2006, and 2018 and fewer years reminiscent of 2014, 2016, and 2022.
