And Stewart does a great job at the basketball games

Eli is 70 years old. In about 10 more years he will be old enough to run for president.

As an Auburn fan, I'll be honest, I couldn't stand him. But there is no denying that he was one of the best to do it. Also, that's a pretty lame move of the administration there if it is true.

From what i understand, he wasn't employed by UA, he was employed by learfield/img. Maybe the university didn't have much say in it...

HEARD mcaweenie and cube-dik talking bout this on their show this morning. Always more behind the scenes!

It was time. Anyone who listened to him last year could tell he was significantly worse than previously. He’s always been bad about not keeping the listener informed about simple things like time/down/distance but people overlooked it because he was so good at other aspects of it, but last year, following his recovery from being sick, was noticeably worse. From what I’ve been told by people that would seem to know better than the average fan, UA told him before making it public and, out of respect, wanted to give him the opportunity to retire, and he refused.

Chris Stewart has been with UA for like 20yrs, he’s fantastic at what he does and has certainly “paid his dues”. It was time, and UA gave him the chance to bow out gracefully, and he refused. Not sure what anyone expects UA to have done differently. Apparently Eli expected to call games until he fell over dead and anything less wasn’t going to be good enough for him.

I agree gomer

I don't know Eli but some of the comments above seem to mirror what I've heard about him from those that have met him.

Gold's contract expires in June anyway, so it's not like they fired him.

Buddy of mine worked at the airport in Ttown back in the late 80's/early 90's when we were at Bama together. Eli owns his own private plane, and he flew into Ttown to the fbo my buddy worked at. I can remember to this day him talking about what a pompous ass Eli was way back then.

It was PAST time, and this has nothing to do with him being a pompous ass.

He was already terrible at calling games....this past season was unbearable.

Chris Stewart is great behind the mic.

I couldnt stand listening to him on the radio. You had no clue what was actually going on until the play was over. You thought, based on his commentary, that something great was happening all the time. Example:

"Bama comes to the line wearing their crimson jerseys and white pants and it's a long 3rd and 10 Bama, ball on the Bama 35. Milroe comes to the line, takes the snap. Defense is expecting pass but he hands the ball off to McClellan. McClellan breaks right, he's got a huge hole......shakes a defender, breaks a tackle, reverses field, he's in the open now, McClellan breaks another tackle and just will not go down. He's running like a man possessed and it takes 5 longhorn defensive players to finally manage to drag him down.......gain of 1 on the play for McClellan.... that'll bring up 4 down and 9 for Bama and they will have to punt."

Met Eli twice. Couldn’t have been a more cordial person both times.

He wasn’t complaining when Bama pushed out Forney, Layton and Duncan.

^^^^^

What goes around comes around.

This

Crimson Tide Sports Network has released a statement. As is almost always the case, there was more to the story and it’s looking more and more like Eli is a bitter old man that was never going to go gracefully…

”As we noted in yesterday's release, Eli Gold has been a legendary broadcaster in a career spanning 52 years. In 2023, we worked out a plan to have Eli call the home games plus Auburn, with Chris Stewart handling away games. We are incredibly appreciative of the positive things Eli has contributed to the Crimson Tide Sports Network and The University of Alabama during his time with us, which is why our desire was for him to remain part of the gameday broadcast and allow us to celebrate his UA broadcast career. But at this point, the interests of UA and CTSN are best served by Chris Stewart handling play by play for all games. After a series of conversations over a period of time, Eli was presented with an opportunity to continue his contributions to the CTSN broadcast team in the coming years in a more limited role, including the lead broadcast role for this year's A-Day game. Unfortunately, he declined the opportunity. We will always appreciate Eli and wish him nothing but the best in his next endeavors. We are incredibly excited about the future of CTSN and what Chris Stewart will bring to the broadcasts in his new role.”

Wasn’t Eli battling cancer last year? I wouldn’t call that working out a plan.

Spin bama spin.

Paul Kennedy took their place when Bill Curry was hired I think.

Ray perkins fired forney and brought in Kennedy. Later when Curry was hired he tried to bring Forney back but he had had a stroke and was never the same. Thats when Eli was hired. It was extremely frustrating trying to follow a game with Eli because of all the things Abolt listed in a previous post. Ive been wanting C Stewart to take over for several years now