Jason Benetti is heading back to Chicago’s North Side for NBC’s “Sunday Night Baseball” on Sunday—after years of friction with the White Sox that have now turned into a notably civil relationship. He’ll call the Giants-Cubs game at 7:30 alongside Cubs analyst
On Sunday, Jason Benetti will be in Chicago again, but this time it won’t be from the White Sox side of the booth. He’ll be in the North Side spotlight as the voice of NBC’s “Sunday Night Baseball,” calling the Giants-Cubs game at 7:30.
It’s the kind of return that brings a strange comfort to baseball fans who remember how personal his last stretch with the White Sox ended. Benetti didn’t leave the team’s television setup on the best of terms. Still, he says the distance since has closed more than anyone expected.
He has been back to Rate Field multiple times since becoming the Tigers’ TV voice in late 2023, including last weekend. Benetti said Sox fans have been good to him—and that even people he once butted heads with have been. too. “I have a lot of friends there still,” he told the Sun-Times. “Even some people that folks would think I’m not friends with, I’m friends with. It ended up being a very good, amicable departure.”.
He added that the communication has kept moving in small ways. “I’ll get a text from Brooks Boyer every once in a while. We communicate. It’s actually been better than I think most people think, and maybe it was initially, as well.”
Boyer—an executive vice president and the chief revenue and marketing officer for the White Sox—played a part in Benetti’s departure after an inappropriate remark left him seething. In November 2023. Benetti told the “Sports Media with Richard Deitsch” podcast that he had been asked for more respect and given a line that still clearly stuck. “I had somebody say to me when I asked for more respect — and basically demanded more respect just in the way I was being treated — they said. ‘Respect according to normal human beings. or respect according to Jason Benetti?’ That is one of those things that I say. that’s disqualifying and will be for a long time.”.
The Sun-Times later reported that the “somebody” was Boyer. But Benetti said the men “quickly let bygones be bygones.” When Benetti returned to Rate Field with the Tigers on Opening Day in 2024—“You talk about ripping the Band-Aid off,” he said—the White Sox saluted him on the video board.
“They didn’t have to do a ‘Hello, welcome back,’ ” Benetti said. “It was really generous. So it’s actually been better than maybe anybody thought it would be after how it ended.”
On Sunday’s broadcast. Benetti won’t just be calling a game—he’ll be calling the way his new life has turned the calendar toward other familiar voices. He’ll be joined by Cubs analyst Jim Deshaies and Giants analyst Hunter Pence. Bob Costas will host the pregame show with Cubs great Anthony Rizzo. and Rizzo will also add commentary during NBC’s “Inside the Pitch” segments.
For some longtime Sox fans, the sight—or sound—of Benetti calling a Cubs game could feel unexpected. Back in 2019. during a Sox victory over a rival. he delivered the “Thanks. Cubs!” remark after Eloy Jimenez’s tiebreaking homer in the ninth inning on June 18. 2019. The Sox had acquired Jimenez from the Cubs, along with Dylan Cease, almost two years before for Jose Quintana.
But Benetti said his feelings about Deshaies don’t run on old rivalries. He worked with Deshaies last Sunday on a Cubs-Cardinals game, a broadcast that averaged 2.5 million viewers on NBC and Peacock and became the most-watched “Sunday Night Baseball” game this season.
“ He has become a good friend. He’s a really good human,” Benetti said. “I revere him and his ability to be a partner and his ability to be curious. He has such an understated but full-of-daggers sense of humor. He’s always funny. He’s great situationally. He is everything you’d want in an analyst, to me. If you were building a Madden create-a-player for an analyst, it would be Jim Deshaies.”.
Benetti’s own reputation as a play-by-play voice was earned the same way many fans came to love it: with knowledge. candor. and wit. Tigers fans fell for him quickly, and he meshed with his new crew fast. On “Sunday Night Baseball. ” he enjoys working with different analysts each week. and he said by all accounts they enjoy working with him. too.
There’s also a personal satisfaction in where he landed. Benetti said he left Fox with a couple of months still on his contract. and he’s grateful the network let him out early so he could take the job with NBC. “I would’ve said this when I was with any network. but I think NBC’s level of care for TV sports is obvious at every turn. ” Benetti said.
He’s also fond of the network because of history: he was the voice of the initial “Sunday Leadoff” package that aired on Peacock in 2022.
Benetti’s return schedule includes one more key milestone. He’ll call a game at Wrigley Field for the first time since August 2024. After the baseball season, he said he isn’t sure what he’ll call for NBC. He signed to work year-round, also calling football and basketball, but what that entails is still being determined.
Even with all that uncertainty, one thing doesn’t change. “No matter what, I grew up a White Sox fan,” said Benetti, who was raised in south suburban Homewood. “Wherever you go in life, whatever you grew up with is always going to be a part of you. But the Tigers have been amazing to me, and they’re always going to be a part of me, too.”.
For Benetti, the weekend isn’t just another job assignment. It’s a reminder that rivalries can stay loud on the field—while relationships, in the right circumstances, can still find a way back into something workable.
Jason Benetti White Sox Tigers NBC Sunday Night Baseball Giants-Cubs Rate Field Brooks Boyer Jim Deshaies Hunter Pence Bob Costas Anthony Rizzo