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Jason Robert Benetti (born September 9, 1983) is an American sportscaster. He is the primary television play-by-play announcer for the Detroit Tigers of Major League Baseball on FanDuel Sports Network.
From 2016 to 2023, Benetti was the lead play-by-play announcer for Chicago White Sox of MLB, and served as an alternate play-by-play announcer for Chicago Bulls of the National Basketball Association, on NBC Sports Chicago. Now primarily contracted with Fox Sports nationally, Benetti was formerly the main announcer for ESPN's alternate "StatCast" telecasts, and additionally has worked for NBC Sports, Westwood One, and Time Warner covering football, baseball, lacrosse, Ice hockey, and basketball.
Benetti grew up a few miles south of Chicago in Homewood, Illinois, and graduated from the Homewood-Flossmoor High School in 2001. He ran the school's NCAA tournament pool and joined the school's radio station, WHFH (88.5) as a regular disc jockey and play-by-play announcer for Vikings sports coverage. Benetti's cerebral palsy prevented him from playing tuba during marching band season. Not wanting to exclude him, the band director asked him to serve as the halftime broadcaster for their marching events.
Benetti attended S. I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University and graduated in 2005 with bachelor's degrees in broadcast journalism, economics and psychology. At Syracuse, he worked at WAER-FM and WJPZ FM where he called Syracuse Orange lacrosse and women's basketball.
After graduating from Syracuse, Benetti enrolled at Wake Forest University School of Law, where he earned a Juris Doctor degree in 2011.
In 2020, Benetti signed a multi-year extension with ESPN, and during that year called KBO League games remotely for the network due to the COVID-19-induced delay of the 2020 Major League Baseball season.
After the 2023 season, Benetti left the White Sox, citing a disrespectful remark from the team's chief revenue and marketing officer Brooks Boyer as an example of his strained relationship with the team's front office. In addition, Benetti speculated that the White Sox preferred a more traditional broadcasting voice rather than his looser, playful style.
In the first year after Benetti's departure, the White Sox booth plummeted from 6th to 30th in booth rankings conducted by Awful Announcing.
Benetti also co-hosts the interview-style podcast Have a Seat with Tigers radio announcer Dan Dickerson. Introducing Have a Seat with Jason Benetti & Dan Dickerson Detroit Tigers Official YouTube Channel
On April 26, 2022, it was reported that Benetti would serve as the lead play-by-play announcer for the new NBC Sports-produced MLB Sunday Leadoff games for Peacock, joined by rotating analysts representing the teams in each game.
In week 17 and 18 of the 2022 NFL season, Benetti would work his first games for the NFL on Fox, doing play-by-play as the Arizona Cardinals visited the Atlanta Falcons to start, followed by the Carolina Panthers against the New Orleans Saints in week 18 and filled-in for Brandon Gaudin, who filled-in for Wayne Larrivee on the Green Bay Packers radio network.
Benetti is part of the Cerebral Palsy Foundation's "Just Say Hi" campaign.
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