{"id":576468,"date":"2026-04-10T19:10:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T19:10:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/576468\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T19:10:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T19:10:08","slug":"play-by-play-announcer-mark-jones-is-leaving-espn-after-36-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/576468\/","title":{"rendered":"Play-by-play announcer Mark Jones is leaving ESPN after 36 years."},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Mark Jones has been an on-air staple on <a class=\"link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/entertainment-arts\/business\/story\/2025-11-19\/la-fi-netflix-mlb-deal\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">ESPN<\/a> since the first Bush administration \u2014 as in <a class=\"link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/local\/obituaries\/la-me-george-hw-bush-20181130-story.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">George H.W. Bush<\/a>, who served from 1989 to 1992.<\/p>\n<p>So, yeah, it\u2019s been a long time. <\/p>\n<p>And now, Jones says, \u201cit\u2019s time to move on.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Jones\u2019 final ESPN broadcast will be Sunday, when he will serve as the play-by-play announcer for the Orlando Magic at Boston Celtics game on the final day of the NBA\u2019s regular season. It could very well be the last time the phrase \u201chotter than fish grease\u201d is uttered on the network.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s been a memorable journey these decades with the ABC\/ESPN family, but I have decided that it\u2019s time to move on,\u201d <a class=\"link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/DW9PzhHjaQE\/?img_index=1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Jones wrote<\/a> in a statement posted Friday on Instagram. \u201cFrom the day Dennis Swanson hired me in 1990 and working with the best producer in the business, Kim Belton, until today I will forever be grateful for the many friends and colleagues along the way.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Jones, 64, started at ESPN in 1990. As a play-by-play announcer, he is best known for calling NBA games but he has also covered college football, men\u2019s and women\u2019s college basketball, the WNBA and UFL. On June 2, 2022, Jones, Mark Jackson and Lisa Salters were the first all-Black crew to call an NBA Finals game on TV.<\/p>\n<p>In addition, Jones has hosted the \u201cNBA Today\u201d studio show and  been an anchor and reporter on \u201cSportsCenter.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMark has made an enduring impact at ESPN since 1990, serving as a signature voice primarily within our NBA and college football coverage and across nearly all of our platforms,\u201d ESPN said in a statement. \u201cWe\u2019re grateful for Mark\u2019s countless contributions and we wish him continued success.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Separate from his work at ESPN, Jones has also been the primary TV play-by-play announcer for the Sacramento Kings since 2020.<\/p>\n<p>Jones hasn\u2019t indicated what he\u2019ll be doing next, but he ended his announcement with a big prediction for the future \u2014 and threw in his signature phrase for good measure.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs I move on to my next chapter I believe my best work is yet to come,\u201d he wrote. \u201cI\u2019ll be out there cookin\u2019 hotter than fish grease!\u201d<\/p>\n<p> <script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mark Jones has been an on-air staple on ESPN since the first Bush administration \u2014 as in George&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":576469,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[1607,352,98626,182942,355,253330,253331,253329,253332,99,16329,2384,434,11270,15186,2394],"class_list":{"0":"post-576468","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-college-football","9":"tag-espn","10":"tag-mark-jackson","11":"tag-mark-jones","12":"tag-nba","13":"tag-nba-game","14":"tag-phrase","15":"tag-play-by-play-announcer","16":"tag-play-by-play-announcer-mark-jones","17":"tag-sports","18":"tag-statement","19":"tag-time","20":"tag-wnba","21":"tag-woman","22":"tag-work","23":"tag-year"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576468","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=576468"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576468\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/576469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=576468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=576468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=576468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}