Another great move by FSC is bringing back Allen Hopkins to be their PBP guy for Saturday games. He's one of my favorite American announcers and I thought he'd some day get a chance at ESPN. This is taken from goal.com:
Ugh, hes a pompous a-hole, but at least hes not failing at color still. If it means less christian miles, then its a good thing, i guess.
A pompous A-hole? Allen Hopkins? I have to heartily disagree with that. And yes, he's 100 times better than Christian Miles, but pretty much anybody would be.
i wish he would take over for Christopher Sullivan, thats a true a-hole that the whole world could use less of
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKlxjbhB9HE&tracker=False&NR=1&feature=fvwp"]YouTube - Famous Carlton Dance (a compilation)[/ame] Hopkins takes a lot of crap but he's a good guy. He knows the game, is a solid, if not spectacular broadcaster who knows MLS very well. He might try a little too hard, but I can live with that. And, of course, anything that conspires to help keep Christian "Kneepads*" Miles from doing MLS games is a good move. * - calling him Kneepads isn't homophobia. I don't care if Kneepads is gay. In fact, if he is, I will congratulate him and fight for his right to marry and serve in the military. Especially if it means he'll stop calling soccer. I do care that he's a terrible announcer and he's so bad the only conclusion to make is he keeps job by blowing people at FSC and Chivas USA. So, no need to be little beeyotch and neg rep me for being "homophobic" calling him Kneepads. You wanna neg rep me, fine. I don't care. But don't make accusations like homophobia without knowing where I stand on the issue or why I call Kneepads, uh, Kneepads.
I'm surprised there isn't a broader thread on FSC's changes in general. Last evening they announced a host of changes to their MLS coverage. Wynalda and Sullivan will now be hosting the pregame, halftime, postgame stuff. Kyle Martino now appears to be the main color commentator. JP has been added as a Friday play-by-play guy, of course, and Brian Dunseth looks to have been moved out of the booth to a sideline reporting role. http://msn.foxsports.com/press/story/fox-soccer-announces-2011-mls-broadcast-team
SO that releases implies that Allen is one of a few guys who will do play by play on the saturday games...and that Sullivan is no longer doing color, just in studio work. That's a lot of movement for their broadcasts, with no one essentially keeping their same job, right?
You do realise your protestations about not being homophobic and then attaching the label gay to someone as a means of attacking their credibility is borderline schizophrenic? (not to mention you obviously equate being gay with immorality and promiscuity) By the way you won't find me fighting for the right of one man to marry another - I don't give a crap. Likewise if gays want to be used as cannon fodder by the industrial complex then that's their business.
Thank God for that! Keep Dunseth as far away from the PBP position as possibile. He makes FSC sound like a high school production.
I actually find this post sexist, as if the possibility doesn't exist that there aren't any female TV executives out there.
There's a small handful of you around here who seem to REALLY detest Christian Miles. I have to confess, I don't get it. I don't think he's some extraordinary commentator or anything (in fact, I think he's Evidence A of why British-style commentary doesn't translate well to American), but I also don't get why there's this strain of hardcore hatred toward the guy. He strikes me as, at worst, basically neutral and harmless. He's pretty well versed in the world game, he's smooth enough in his delivery, professional enough on the air. Not notably good OR bad, one way or the other. Just kind of "there." I'd honestly like one of the haters explain what it is that makes him such a target of their wrath. Like, I get it when somebody has a severe reaction toward big characters like Ray Hudson or Max Bretos or Dave O'Brien -- even if I don't happen to share the opinion myself, at least it's understandable. With Miles, not so much.
+rep for the Carlton Banks reference. We all know how much of a yes man he showed us over Beckham mania.
Maybe you're thinking of Christopher Sullivan, who also gets a lot of stick around here, and who I also like. Miles is just annoying, and when he announces the Chivas USA games there is no bigger homer anywhere. He had a sidekick, Bernard something, a couple of years ago, who was ABYSMAL.
I'm not referring to Sullivan. There are plenty of people who actively dislike him, and just as many who are big fans. Sullivan has a pretty distinctive shtick, so it's easy to see why he's a lightning rod for opinions one way or the other. So, no -- I'm talking about Miles. There's this handful of BigSoccer posters who just really tear into the guy every time his name comes up. And I don't get it. It's like having this passionate outrage about plain wheat bread or something. I don't get what's so egregious about him that anybody would care much one way or the other.
Same here. While announcing on FSC he seems pretty neutral and isn't over-the-top like Max Bretos nor is he overly reserved like Martin Tyler.
Rather than quote, I'll just point up^ I totally agree about Miles. I don't like him either, but I don't see why people hate him. He's 1000x better than Dunseth. Overall though, I really like the changes here for both FSC and ESPN. I like Adrian Healey a lot more than JP, and I'm thrilled that Bretos is going to do some play-by-play for ESPN. JP and Hopkins are certainly both better than Miles and Dunseth, so all in all, it's a major net positive for American soccer viewers. It will even make me shut up about the "MLS to Versus" movement, because my main gripe with FSC was the commentating. Also, ESPN's still going to have Darke do some premier MLS matches, right? If so, then this is one of the most positive times for soccer broadcasting in recent memory.
Dunseth has a nasally voice, but he's a very good color guy, in that he actually has interesting things to say. Miles is fairly harmless overall, I must agree, and he's a more polished PBP guy than Dunseth, but much better? No.
My dislike for Miles is based on him CONSTANTLY getting his facts wrong while always trying to earn his Latino bona fides by injecting attempts at pronouncing things with a horrible faux-Hispanic accent, often brutalizing the actual pronounciation in the process. He come across as disingenuous as he always seems like he is overselling something that isn't that good to begin with and then underscores his case with his myriad factual errors. The faux-Latino schtick could be more tolerable if he didn't make so many mistakes. But when you keep making mistakes and then try the faux-accent thing, it sends the message that you'd rather practice trying to SOUND like you know what you're doing rather than spending more time preparting and actually learning to get facts straight. He just seems dimwitted and bottom line, he sucks at his job. Which is why he's nicknamed Kneepads.
Allen Hopkins is an LA-homer and a complete jerk. He reported, in his not so unbiased way, that San Jose fans didn't deserve a team and poor put-upon AEG should move them. He did this, of course, at a time when the Quakes were better than LA and he didn't like that very much. He's never apologized. He will never be forgiven. He can choke on his microphone.