George Michael, Sportscaster, Dies at 70

The cause was chronic lymphocytic leukemia, his wife, Pat Lackman, said.

Mr. Michael was sports director and sports anchor of WRC-TV, the NBC affiliate in Washington, for 27 years. He was known as a hard-working reporter — he covered a wide range of sports events, from the Super Bowl to rodeo — but also as a large personality, a bravado interviewer and an irreverent commentator. Those qualities, as well as his belief, in the words of his wife, that “on TV, the tape is the star,” anticipated what much of television sports reporting has become, especially as presented on ESPN.

“SportsCenter,” ESPN’s news and highlights show, made its debut as a daily program in 1979 (it now airs several times a day), but it has made many format changes over the years and was clearly influenced by “The Sports Machine,” which went national in 1984. As Steve Levy, an anchor for “SportsCenter,” told The Washington Post in 2007, “For me, ‘The Sports Machine’ really was ‘SportsCenter’ before ‘SportsCenter.’ ”

Mr. Michael, a native of St. Louis, was born George Gimpel, a name he changed for professional reasons, on March 24, 1939.