Eli Gold

Elias Leo Gold (born December 15, 1953) is an American sportscaster.

Gold was born on December 15, 1953, in Brooklyn, New York.

He began his broadcasting career in 1972 as a weekend sports reporter for the Mutual Broadcasting System.

Gold called New York home until he was twenty-three.

He lost his father when he was very young; he said, "Regretfully, I didn’t know him that well."

Gold says that growing up in New York impacted his broadcasting career because there were over 200 radio stations in the area.

He worked at WOR and WNEW, where he learned the business.

His high school was not the usual high school that most kids go to, instead he went from 7am until 10:41am, then would go to work.

In the eighth grade, he knew he wanted to be a sportscaster.

He began his career in 1972 working as a weekend sports reporter with the Mutual Broadcasting System.

Gold's first specialty was announcing ice hockey for the Eastern, North American, Southern, American, Central, and the National Hockey Leagues.

In 1976, Gold became a member of NASCAR’s Motor Racing Network, which gives over 600 stations the broadcast of the NASCAR races.

He had many different jobs with the network, including co-anchor, turn announcer, and pit reporter.

His first job with MRN was working turns 1 & 2 for the 1976 World 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway in what he described as "basically an on-the-air audition."

After the race, he asked Barney Hall if he thought "they are going to bring me back."

His reply was that he thought "so[.] [Y]ou did OK and I'm sure you'll be back again."

In the NHL, Gold announced games for the 1979–80 St. Louis Blues on KDNL-TV, and was the radio play-by-play announcer for the Nashville Predators during the 2006–07 NHL season.

While he was working with the baseball team, he was named the Southern League’s Broadcaster of the Year in 1983.

He was also voted Alabama Sportscaster of the Year four times by the National Sportscasters and Sportswriter Association.

Gold moved to Birmingham, Alabama to call games for the Birmingham Bulls hockey team of the World Hockey Association.

He created Birmingham's first local sports call-in show, Calling All Sports on WERC, which became a staple of Birmingham sports radio for 20 years.

He eventually rose to the position of sports director for what was then that market's ABC affiliate, WBRC, where he anchored evening news sports segments and hosted Sports Talk with Eli, a weekly call-in show.

From 1984-2016, Gold was host of "NASCAR Live," a weekly show that is heard all over the United States on terrestrial radio, MRN.com, and Sirius XM NASCAR Radio.

Gold is best known as the former radio voice for the Alabama Crimson Tide football team, along with Tom Roberts, as part of the Crimson Tide Sports Network from 1988-2024.

He also currently calls college football and NFL games for Sports USA Radio Network.

Gold's former jobs include hosting NASCAR Live on the Motor Racing Network and calling play-by-play for Arena Football League's coverage on TNN and NBC.

Beginning in the 1988 football season, Gold became the radio broadcaster for the University of Alabama Crimson Tide football and basketball teams.

He hosted the shows "The Tide" and "Hey Coach," which had the coaches of both the basketball and football teams call in to talk with Gold.

Along with the Alabama Crimson Tide, Gold was called by CBS Sports to broadcast the play-by-play on a college basketball regional show, which included the universities of Georgia and South Carolina.

Gold was the first play-by-play announcer for the University of Alabama Birmingham (UAB) Blazers basketball team for six years.

Gold would serve at times as the play-by-play announcer for the Blazers in the absence of Gary Sanders.

He also spent four years as the broadcaster for the Birmingham Barons baseball team.

From 1996 to 2000, Gold was the lead announcer for TNN's coverage of the Winston Cup Series, sharing the booth with analysts such as Buddy Baker, Dick Berggren, Chad Little and Phil Parsons.

He also worked with ESPN, CBS Sports, NBC Sports, and SETN in all of their coverage of NASCAR racing.

According to NASCAR driver Kenny Wallace, who also broadcasts NASCAR-themed shows on Speed Channel and St. Louis radio station KMOX-AM, Gold "is one of the most recognizable voices in NASCAR and in all of sports broadcasting."

From 2002 to 2004 he hosted a daily sports talk show also called Calling All Sports on WJOX-AM in Birmingham.

While he no longer works the booth or turns, he returned to working each MRN Sprint Cup Series broadcast in the 2015 season hosting the pre-race show and post-race show.

In 2016, Gold resigned from MRN and all NASCAR duties.

Published reports cited an incident in April of that year that was not disclosed.

Gold made a return to pro hockey during the 2017–18 season, broadcasting games for the expansion Birmingham Bulls in the Southern Professional Hockey League.