Castro Valley native San Jose State Alum Brodie Brazil has turned an early love of storytelling into a 20-year broadcasting career covering the same Bay Area teams he grew up cheering for.

As a lifetime supporter of Bay Area sports, Brodie Brazil admits his role as a host on NBC Sports California is a dream come true. But that doesn’t mean the work can’t be grueling.

During a visit to the NBC Sports California offices in San Francisco, Brazil’s walking through the Sharks Pregame Live run-of-show with cohost Curtis Brown and producers. There’s no A’s coverage today, so there’s no need to choose a new necktie from a container full of options on his desk in the afternoon to transition from A’s chat to Sharks talk. It’s a crossover period, which means Brazil is occasionally covering baseball and hockey on the same day. Just like athletes training in the pre-season, hosts can pull double days.

He jokes that in these periods, the forechecks and fastballs can sort of blur. Yet, as someone once told him, it’s like he’s an accountant and it’s tax season. He tends to prefer a different metaphor. “This is like a bachelor party,” he says. “I’m loving every minute of this, and I’m going as hard as I can, but man, I’m going to be tired at the end.”

It’s not an unfamiliar feeling: Brazil’s first foray into sports broadcasting began nearly 20 years ago, but his passion for storytelling gained steam well before that. During his formative years in Castro Valley, he and his brother Darren fell in love with making custom videos, an endeavor wholly supported by their parents. Brazil was a two-sport athlete as well, playing baseball and basketball up through his time at Castro Valley High School.

If you think I’m good at this job, it’s because I’m just the average person getting to do something pretty cool.

-NBC Sports Host, Brodie Brazil

He seized a chance to merge his two passionswhen he started interning for High School Sports Focus during his final semester of high school. “I would make the drive down I-680 one or two times a week,” he recalls. “I would learn to use the camera, come back, learn how to edit the highlights together, figure out what writing a script was all about. I was the ultimate sponge back then.” That training made him the ideal candidate to shoot and edit games when a position opened with KICU-TV (now KTVU Plus) less than a month into his first semester at San Jose State. The opportunity also led to his first gig covering the Oakland A’s.

Landing a gig with Sports Focus meant he was gaining valuable on-the-job experience just as he was learning the basics of broadcast journalism at San Jose State. It did, however, come with some social downsides. “On Friday nights, while everybody was out having fun,” he notes, “I was on the clock.”

He hadn’t imagined being in front of the camera when he started on his journey. By the time he was studying at San Jose State, though, he’d refined his academic focus, choosing to pursue a role as host. When he returned to Sports Focus in 2001, he had the chance to start working on camera and contributing feature stories. He was promoted to cohost in 2005, a post he held until the program was cancelled at the end of 2007.

Since KICU chose not to retain Brazil at the station, he scrambled to find another gig in the region. Whispers of a pending expansion at NBC Sports had him diligently knocking on their door. “I was doing everything possible to get a job here, and if it didn’t work out, I was very much on the line to probably move out of the market. That was a fear for me,” he admits. During that period of uncertainty, he chose to pursue his dream of becoming a flight instructor (Brazil received his private pilot’s license in 2003). He passed his instructor’s test in 2008, a feat he maintains was one of the toughest things he’s ever done.

Brazil was granted his wish in February 2009, when he returned to broadcasting as a field producer with NBC Sports Bay Area (then CSN Bay Area). He’s remained with the organization ever since. During the 2009-2010 season, he began ringside reporting at Sharks games. The tricky assignment, one where he stood directly behind the bench to gain immediate in-game insights from players, challenged him, but he also grew immensely from the experience. Soon after, he took the reins of Sharks Pregame Live and Postgame Live. Since then, he’s become the host of A’s Pregame Live and Postgame Live, SportsNet Reports, A’s Central, and Sharks Central.

Brazil has won 13 Emmys for his work over the years, though, in retrospect, he admits he put a bit too much focus on that pursuit early in his career. He’s now shifted his priorities to becoming an informed source on social media. “I might have got into this business to share stories on television, but it turns out the way I have the most reach is putting it on the internet,” he says. Nowadays, he’s much more likely to have a fan mention something he posted to Twitter or Instagram than what he said during a broadcast. That shift, however, comes with a constant focus on how to keep Sharks and A’s fans informed and entertained. As he notes, “You have to feed the machine a little bit.”

Forget thinking of broadcasting like a typical nine-to-five. He’s missed weddings, cancelled dinners, and had to let go of plenty of family events over the years for work. Thankfully, his wife, who he met working in the NBC Sports Bay Area studios, understands just what it’s like in his field.

Brazil grabs a rolled-up tie from his plastic bin of options at his desk (he stocks it monthly) 15 minutes before Sharks Pregame goes live and heads into the bathroom to get camera ready. When he returns, he’s suited from the waist up, though outside the frame, he’s still in jeans and walking shoes.

Now a father, he admits that his new family role has helped him look at his career from a new perspective. For one, he values the importance of health benefits much more than he used to. But it’s also helped him see more clearly what issues are worth fighting for and what ones are better letting go. With Sharks playoffs looming, he’s been getting nostalgic on social media. Recent posts on Instagram reveal Brazil as a teen in front of SAP Center donning a Sharks jersey and a shot of his old roller hockey helmet adorned with a Sharks sticker. He admits, still a bit in awe, that he’s been able to call some players friends.

Reflecting on the fact that he’s closing in on two decades in this industry, he poses a hypothetical: 20 more Emmys or 20 more years covering the A’s and Sharks? “A’s and Sharks,” he says with little hesitation. “Longevity is what I aspire to. That, to me, is more valuable than anything else.” Referencing his career so far, he says, “It’s a storybook, and I don’t take it lightly.”

A storyteller at heart, Brazil still relishes the chance to translate and simplify nuances of sport for viewers. The only thing that might take him away would be a dream gig as a commercial pilot—though, he stresses, that would be the ultimate dream scenario for a man quite content with the career he’s built for himself.

“This has all worked out pretty well,” he concludes. “If you think I’m good at this job, it’s because I’m just the average person getting to do something pretty cool.”

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