Colorado Outdoors Podcast Host: Mark Johnson

Mark Johnson, an avid hunter, fly-fisherman and rancher, is the host for Colorado Outdoors Podcast.

Johnson is the director of audio broadcasting for the University of Colorado and has been the play-by-play announcer for CU’s football and men’s basketball teams since 2004.

In his role and in addition to his announcing duties, he hosts various television and radio shows, podcasts, makes personal appearances and does voiceover work for the university. He also does television and radio work for various national and regional networks in the Rocky Mountain Region and across the country and has become known for his distinctive, booming tenor voice.

You may have also heard that voice from time-to-time at a Colorado Rockies game, where he has also served as the public address announcer periodically.

Johnson was named sports director at KOA-Radio in Denver in the spring of 2004, replacing the retiring Larry Zimmer, who had held the position for over two decades.

Prior to coming to Colorado, Johnson spent three years as the “Voice of the Orange” for Syracuse University football and men’s basketball. He was at the microphone when former Denver Nugget, Carmelo Anthony, led the Orange to the 2003 NCAA championship. He also hosted weekly call-in shows for basketball coach Jim Boeheim and football coach Paul Pasqualoni, the Syracuse Sidelines television show and served as the ISP-SU Radio Network affiliate liaison.

His entire professional career has been spent in broadcasting. Before his time in Syracuse, he was the sports director for WJBC-Radio in Bloomington, Ill., and was the play-by-play announcer for four years at Illinois State University, where he earned three Silver Dome Awards for best play-by play broadcast in the state of Illinois. Johnson also worked two years announcing football and basketball games at his alma mater, the University of North Dakota, and was a talk show host and play-by-play announcer for three years at WASK-AM and WKOA-FM in Lafayette, Ind.

In 2015 Johnson became the President of the Evergreen Rodeo Association in Evergreen (Colo.), serving a one-year term. His involvement in rodeo continues a life-long love of horses and the Western way-of-life. In the summer of 2019, Johnson added benefit and charity auctioneering to his resume, as he graduated from the World Wide College of Auctioneering.

He earned a bachelor’s degree in communications from North Dakota in 1992.

A native of Hillsboro, N.D., he graduated from Grand Forks (N.D.) Central High School, where he was an All-State basketball player. His hobbies include spending time with his family, riding his horses, playing with his two dogs, hunting and fly-fishing. He is married to the former Susan Jacobson, who was Miss North Dakota for 1989 and competed in the Miss America pageant. The couple has three children, sons Nicolas and Jake, and daughter Halle (who is married to a former Navy Corpsman, John Mathues); they are the grandfather of one (Yuley, born this past August).