Veteran media, business and sports professional Keith Brown, who once hosted the popular Thursday Nights at the Fights, died on Monday, his brother Leroy confirmed this morning.

The 82-year-old sportscaster died from complications of brain surgery he had undergone in New York last week Tuesday.

“Keith lived a full life that went across the whole spectrum,” Leroy said. “He was very versatile.”

Brown was a sports editor at The Jamaica Gleaner and a sportscaster at the Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation (JBC), now TVJ. At JBC, he hosted the popular Thursday Night at the Fights, that Leroy said people still talk about and ask when is it coming back.

Brown also served as president of the Jamaica Boxing Board of Control and was a vice president of the Jamaica Cricket Association.

He was also a certified international boxing judge.

ONE OF THE MINDS BEHIND HEINEKEN STARTIME

Leroy said his brother, the first public relations manager at bauxite mining company Alumina Partners (ALPART), was also a founding member of the Public Relations Society of Jamaica. He was also the managing director of public relations firm Brown, Ray and Associates.

For three decades, Keith Brown and musicologist Michael Barnett, via MKB Promotions, were the minds behind the long-running Startime concerts that became known as Heineken Startime, as the liquor brand had backed the event for almost two decades. The popular concerts featured artistes like Alton Ellis, John Holt, Gregory Isaacs and many more acts from the 1960s and 1970s that had previously fallen out of the local entertainment spotlight.

He did some singing himself as a member of the Masonic Chorale and the Stella Maris Choir.

A graduate of Kingston Technical High School, Keith Brown was the first Jamaican to receive a scholarship to attend the Thompson Foundation training course in England.

He is survived by three children – Kurt, Michelle and Andrea – and four grandchildren.