Link (http://www.wtop.com/?sid=1849159&nid=25)

WASHINGTON - George Michael, former sportscaster at NBC 4, has died of cancer at the age of 70.
Michael revolutionized local sportscasting with the use of brand new satellite technology that produced highlights from all over the country.

Known to be competitive, demanding and aggressive, Michael built a sports dynasty at Channel 4 that not only turned out local sportscasts on Channel 4 but produced a nationally syndicated Sunday night sports show.

He died after a two-year battle with cancer.

WRC released the following statement about George Michael:

"George Michael was our friend and colleague for more than 25 years. He was a dynamic force around our newsroom and in the entire Washington area. George was a pioneer in sports broadcasting. He was a gifted interviewer, a master storyteller, and one of the hardest working journalists out there. Our hearts go out to his wife Pat and his daughter Michelle, both of whom also worked with us for many years, as well as the rest of his family. ‬"

Michael signed off as Channel 4's lead sports anchor March 1, 2007. He rejected NBC Universal's demands to slash his production staff.

:rip:

This is so sad, I used to watch the Sports Machine every Sunday night for years. I also didn't realize he was that old.

:rip: Mr. Michael

awww that is a shame. I too loved sports machine too. He was one of the few sports casters who actually covered pro wrestling. :rip:

RIP George

^ That's right. I remember the interview he did with Ric Flair when he was the NWA world champion.

:rip: George.

I watched Sports Machine years ago and always enjoyed his presentation. Actually I would have guessed him to have been a little older than 70 by now. May he rest in peace.

Wow, I never knew there was anyone with that name besides half of the 1980s duo Wham!.

Wow, I never knew there was anyone with that name besides half of the 1980s duo Wham!.

Please don't dishonor the man by mentioning him in the same sentence as that loon with the same name. :rolleyes:

Wow, I had no idea he had cancer. I used to watch his show on occasion. So sorry to hear this!

A lot of people may not know this, but George Michael was in line to do the ice hockey assignment for ABC Sports during the 1980 Winter Olympics at Lake Placid. Ultimately, Al Michaels would get to cover what would become the "Miracle on Ice", and the rest is history.

"Sports Machine" was great... in the pre-ESPN days, all we usually got in sports reporting (on TV) was about 5 minutes on the 6:00 pm and late-night local news. And that was pretty much it. We got highlights of local (in our case, New York Teams) games, and then they would post the scores of all other games on the screen, but only on occasion would we see highlights from other games.

To see highlights of ALL NFL games, we'd have to pretty much wait until the following Saturday evening to watch "This Week In The NFL", which was produced by NFL films. That was an hour long show. The weekend also provided other programs to show highlights of other sports. But during the week, it was pretty much local news and nothing else as far as video highlights go.

We could, of course, follow everything, but it had to be through the daily newspaper, subscriptions to The Sporting News and Sports Illustrated (as well as magazines dedicated to specific sports, like Baseball, Football and Basketball Digests). Oh, and if we didn't want to wait until the next day's paper for scores of certain games, we could call a 1-900 number for scores (for games played on the West Coast at night, it usually took two days for the results and box scores to appear in our East Coast papers).

But on Sports Machine, we had a whole 30 minutes of news, highlights and interviews. That was great. George Michael's Sports Machine was definitely Sportscenter before Sportscenter. I know it was popular all over the country, I'm sure it was a huge influence in terms of someone deciding to start up ESPN.

People take ESPN so much for granted now, but George Michael was truly a pioneer of Sports Broadcasting. We tend to think of radio guys as being pioneers, but Michael fits the bill as well.