- Bob McElligott is out after 17 years as the Blue Jackets’ radio voice
- Columbus becomes the fifth NHL team to pipe its TV audio onto the radio network
- Read below for McElligott’s full statement and the reaction from around the league
Columbus is done with a radio broadcast of its own.
The Blue Jackets announced that every game will be simulcast across television and radio starting in 2026-27, with the TV audio feed carried on the club’s radio network and flagship station 97.1 The Fan. Bob McElligott, the team’s radio play-by-play announcer for the last 17 years, will not be back.
He put out his own statement on X hours later:
“As some of you have heard, I learned today that the Columbus Blue Jackets have decided to simulcast their TV broadcast, and my contract as the team’s radio play-by-play announcer will not be renewed,” McElligott wrote.
The rest of the note went to the McConnell family and the fan base.
“To the #5thLine, I am especially grateful to you. Your passion, enthusiasm and caring motivated me and drove me to give you the best broadcast that I could. Although I don’t know what is next for me, I look forward to keeping in touch on here and to sharing more great moments with you in sports.”
Club vice president of business intelligence and broadcasting Marc Gregory handled the goodbye in the team release.
“Bob’s voice was at the heart of many of our club’s unforgettable moments and helped shape memories that will live on for years to come,” Gregory said.
McElligott came aboard in 2009 as a color commentator and slid over to play-by-play for the 2013-14 season, taking the chair from George Matthews, the franchise’s original radio voice. TV pair Steve Mears and Jody Shelley will now call both feeds, and Dylan Tyrer keeps his job as studio host.
That makes five NHL clubs folding radio into the television call, with Columbus joining Buffalo, Carolina, Dallas and St. Louis, per Radio Ink. The savings matter here because the Blue Jackets are moving TV production to NHL Productions instead of signing with a regional sports network, a switch expected to cost them revenue.
Broadcasters around the league were not shy about it. Jeff Marek laid out why one call cannot serve both audiences:
Steve Clark, who has called plenty of games himself, put it more bluntly:
It caps a busy stretch in Columbus that also brought Don Granato onto the coaching staff and a three-year deal for Cole Sillinger.
Whatever McElligott lands on next, Blue Jackets listeners know exactly what they lost: a radio call built for radio.
