Mike Pearl, a leading sports producer who shaped CBS’s “The NFL Today” into a must-see pregame show in the 1970s and gave the garrulous, opinionated former player Charles Barkley a forum on TNT’s N.B.A. studio show in the early 2000s, died on March 1 at his home in Sunny Isles Beach, Fla. He was 77.
The cause was heart disease, said his brother, Bob, his only immediate survivor.
Mr. Pearl won 16 Sports Emmy Awards, including two for “The NFL Today.” He started at that show as a line producer in 1975, the first year of a successful overhaul that brought in a new cast consisting of Brent Musburger; Phyllis George, a former Miss America, who died in May 2020; and the former defensive back Irv Cross, who died last month.