[3] Gumbel was hired by NBC Sports in the fall of 1975 as co-host of its National Football League pre-game show GrandStand with Jack Buck.

He returned to sportscasting for NBC when he hosted the prime time coverage of the 1988 Summer Olympics from Seoul and the PGA Tour in 1990.

NBC News made Gumbel the principal anchor of Today beginning September 27, 1982, and broadcast from Vietnam, Vatican City, Europe, South America, and much of the United States between 1984 and 1989.

He is the son of Rhea Alice (née LeCesne), a city clerk, and Richard Dunbar Gumbel, a judge.

[5] Raised Catholic,[6] he attended and graduated from De La Salle Institute in Chicago, while growing up on the South Side of the city; his family had moved north when he was a child.

He was one of four siblings, including two sisters and an older brother, Greg Gumbel, who also became a nationally recognized sports broadcaster.

Already a local evening news sports anchor for KNBC (a Los Angeles television station owned and operated by NBC), Gumbel began appearing on NBC Sports telecasts in the fall of 1975, as co-host of its National Football League pre-game show GrandStand with Jack Buck.

He returned to sportscasting for NBC when he hosted the prime time coverage of the 1988 Summer Olympics from Seoul and the PGA Tour in 1990.

Gumbel became a candidate for the job just by chance when he served as a last-minute substitute for Today co-anchor Jane Pauley in August 1981.

With ABC's Good Morning America in first place and expanding its lead, NBC News made Gumbel the principal anchor of Today beginning September 27, 1982, with Pauley as his co-anchor.

NBC took Today on the road in the fall of '84, sending Gumbel to the Soviet Union for an unprecedented series of live broadcasts from Moscow.

During this time, Gumbel had developed animosity toward David Letterman when the Late Night host disrupted taping of a Today primetime special in Rockefeller Center with a bullhorn.

In the memo, Gumbel commented that Willard Scott "holds the show hostage to his assortment of whims, wishes, birthdays and bad taste ... this guy is killing us and no one's even trying to rein him in".

[15] Following Pauley's departure from Today in December 1989, Gumbel was joined by Deborah Norville in a short-lived partnership that lasted just over a year.

Today dropped to second place in the ratings during this period as a result of intensely negative publicity surrounding Norville's replacement of Pauley, and Gumbel's feud with Scott.

Norville was replaced by Katie Couric in April 1991, and the Gumbel-Couric team helped refocus Today as the morning news program on public affairs during the 1992 presidential campaign.

A CBS camera caught a disgusted Gumbel blurting out, "What a fucking idiot," just after he had finished a hostile interview with Robert Knight of the Family Research Council (FRC).

The Media Research Center reported that he uttered those words; Gumbel openly admitted to saying so when guest-hosting a June 2007 episode of Live with Regis and Kelly.

[3] In February 2006, Gumbel made remarks seen as controversial regarding the Winter Olympics and the lack of Black athlete participation, while others considered it important sports journalism commentary.

[22] So try not to laugh when someone says these are the world's greatest athletes, despite a paucity of Blacks that makes the Winter Games look like a GOP convention.On the August 15, 2006, episode of Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel, Gumbel made the following remarks about former NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue and Players' Union president Gene Upshaw and directed these comments to new commissioner Roger Goodell: Before he cleans out his office, have Paul Tagliabue show you where he keeps Upshaw's leash.

[23]On the October 18, 2011, Gumbel evoked slavery in his criticism of NBA Commissioner David Stern over the league's lockout.

[citation needed] His efforts are typical of a commissioner who has always seemed eager to be viewed as some kind of modern-day plantation overseer, treating (National Basketball Association) men as if they were his boys.

... His moves are intended to do little more than show how he's the one keeping the hired hands in their place.In a Rolling Stone article dated January 20, 2015, Gumbel said: "There are a few things I hate more than the NRA.

"[24] Gumbel made a cameo appearance alongside Nicolas Cage and Michael Caine in The Weather Man, a film directed by Gore Verbinski.