1. Bruce William McAvaney was born on 22 June 1953 and is an Australian sports broadcaster with the Seven Network.
22 Facts About Bruce McAvaney
1. 2.
Bruce McAvaney is well known for his commentary of AFL matches as well as covering every Summer Olympic Games from the Los Angeles 1984 Summer Olympic Games to the Paris 2024 Summer Olympic Games.
3.
The son of an Adelaide accountant, Bruce McAvaney developed an early interest in sport and race calling.
4.
Bruce McAvaney moved to television in 1978, when he joined Adelaide station ADS-7 to read sport news and produce the weekly Racetrack program.
5.
Bruce McAvaney's career received a boost when colleague Sandy Roberts covered the 1980 Moscow Olympics for Seven, and McAvaney was chosen to host the Adelaide end of the telecast for the station.
6.
From 1981 until 1983, Bruce McAvaney was the chief sports presenter for Seven News in Adelaide.
7.
Bruce McAvaney was the lead commentator for Seven's telecasts of the South Australian National Football League competition, calling the 1983 SANFL Grand Final with former player Robert Oatey.
8.
Between 1985 and 1988, Bruce McAvaney called the Melbourne Cup and hosted various major sporting telecasts for Ten, including the 1986 Edinburgh Commonwealth Games, the 1987 World Athletics Championships in Rome and the 1988 IAAF Grand Prix in Berlin.
9.
Bruce McAvaney went on to co-host Ten's telecast of the 1988 Seoul Olympics, a role which won him significant acclaim.
10.
In 1989, Bruce McAvaney negotiated a two-year premature end to his contract with Ten, and returned to the Seven Network on the condition that he could cover the 1992 Olympics.
11.
Bruce McAvaney had been calling the Australian Open since 1990 and been chief caller alongside Jim Courier since 2005.
12.
Bruce McAvaney was the MC of the Brownlow Medal for over two decades, between 1990 and 2018.
13.
Since 2018, Bruce McAvaney has hosted Seven's coverage of Test cricket, interviewing some of cricket's most interesting figures in the lunch breaks of the Melbourne and Sydney Tests.
14.
In February 2021, Bruce McAvaney announced that he was retiring from calling AFL games because of a desire to reduce his workload.
15.
In July 2024 the Australian Broadcasting Corporation announced Bruce McAvaney would be joining its Paris Olympics commentary team on ABC Radio stations.
16.
Bruce McAvaney was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia in June 2002 for service to sports broadcasting, and to the community through charitable and sporting organisations.
17.
Bruce McAvaney was inducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame in that year.
18.
In June 2023, Bruce McAvaney was inducted into the Australian Football Hall of Fame.
19.
Bruce McAvaney is the eleventh media personality to be inducted into the code's Hall of Fame.
20.
Bruce McAvaney met his second wife Anne Johnson, a television journalist and producer, in 1993 while making the show Seasons.
21.
Bruce McAvaney moved his family from Melbourne back to his hometown of Adelaide in 1999.
22.
In March 2017, Bruce McAvaney revealed he had been diagnosed with chronic lymphocytic leukaemia.