Bruce McAvaney Biography
Bruce McAvaney OAM is a Seven Network sports broadcaster in Australia well-known for his AFL analysis and coverage of every Summer Olympic Games from Moscow in 1980 through Tokyo in 2020.
How old is Bruce McAvaney? – Age
He is 69 years old as of 22 June 2022. He was born in 1953 in Ferryden Park, Australia.
Bruce McAvaney Family – Education
McAvaney, the son of an Adelaide accountant, showed an early interest in sports and race calling. He worked as a Telecom clerk for five years after graduating from Woodville High School (and failing Year 12). Then, on a day off from work in 1976, McAvaney went to Kilmore, Victoria, to gamble on some races. He met Kevin Hillier, an Adelaide race caller, who suggested McAvaney assist him back in Adelaide. This sparked his interest in sports media, and he went on to work for Adelaide radio station 5DN, where he called horse races and eventually hosted a sports show.
Bruce McAvaney Wife
McAvaney and Merry were married from 1983 to 1991. He met his second wife, television journalist and producer Anne Johnson, in 1993 while filming Seasons. He has two children with her, Sam and Alexandra. In 1999, he relocated his family from Melbourne to his homeland of Adelaide.
Bruce McAvaney Net Worth
He has an estimated net worth of $12 million.
Did Bruce McAvaney have cancer? – Health
McAvaney stated in March 2017 that he had been diagnosed with chronic lymphocytic leukemia. Many people are unaware that Bruce was diagnosed with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) in 2014 and is actively involved in the blood cancer community. Bruce, who has been living with CLL for almost eight years, believes his journey is just beginning and credits the support he receives for assisting him in navigating his diagnosis and treatment for blood cancer.
Bruce McAvaney Career
When McAvaney joined Adelaide station ADS-7 in 1978 to read sports news and produce the weekly Racetrack program, he made the transition to television. Sandy Roberts, a coworker of Bruce’s, covered the 1980 Moscow Olympics for Seven, and Bruce was chosen to host the station’s Adelaide portion of the telecast. This gave Bruce’s career a boost.
McAvaney was the chief sports presenter for Seven News in Adelaide from 1981 to 1983. Along with former player Robert Oatey, he also served as the primary commentator for Seven’s coverage of the South Australian National Football League competition, calling the 1983 SANFL Grand Final. He also hosted the Magarey Medal telecasts for the league.
He moved to Melbourne at the end of 1983 and joined Ten Melbourne to read sports news. He was the secondary host and commentator for the Ten Network during the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics’ track and field events.
McAvaney also called the Melbourne Cup for Ten from 1985 to 1988 and hosted a number of major sporting telecasts, including the 1986 Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh, the 1987 World Athletics Championships in Rome, and the 1988 IAAF Grand Prix in Berlin. After that, McAvaney co-hosted Ten’s broadcast of the 1988 Seoul Olympics, a role for which he received a lot of praise.
McAvaney returned to the Seven Network on the condition that he could cover the Olympics in 1992 and negotiated a two-year premature termination of his contract with Ten in 1989.
McAvaney has hosted and called a wide range of sports coverage for Seven since his return, including the Melbourne Cup, World Athletics Championships, Motor Racing, Australian Masters Golf, and all Summer Olympic Games from Barcelona 1992 to Rio 2016—with the exception of London 2012—because Seven did not have the rights to those Games. The moniker “Mr. Olympics” came from his extensive coverage of the Olympics.
[When?] in an interview with the Herald Sun In order to maximize his health during the summer and for other sporting events, McAvaney made the informal announcement that he would no longer commentate Men’s games at the Australian Open. Since 2005, McAvaney and Jim Courier had served as the Open’s chief caller. He had been calling the tournament since 1990. He later blamed his cancer diagnosis for his second tournament absence in 2017, which occurred in 2017.
Between 1990 and 2018, McAvaney served as the Brownlow Medal’s MC for more than two decades, though at different times. Since 2018, McAvaney has hosted Seven’s coverage of the Melbourne and Sydney Tests, conducting interviews with some of cricket’s most intriguing figures during lunch breaks. McAvaney announced in February 2021 that he would be retiring from calling AFL games in order to reduce his workload.