Sorry if this is a bit fluffy for this normally serious thread, but hey, it's Friday. Just curious about what broadcast media personalties people love (and hate). Here are my top 5 in commentary and color/analyst. Obviously influenced by my American/British duality... Commentary 1. John Miller (ESPN; baseball) 2. Martin Tyler (Sky; soccer) 3. Mike Tirico (ABC; golf, etc) 4. Peter Aliss (BBC & ABC; golf) 5. Jonathan Pearce (BBC; soccer) Color/Analysis 1. John McEnroe (NBC, BBC, CBS; tennis - the absolute best) 2. David Feherty (CBS & USA; golf) 3. Peter Gammons (ESPN; baseball) 4. Dick Vermeil (ABC; football - genius, get back in the booth!) 5. Bill Raftery (ESPN & CBS; basketball) My worst list has only 1.... Billy Packer. No one else comes close.
-jon miller should be shot he's so freaking bad... preferably in a way that induces great pain and suffering... something he causes the listeners -any of the harrey carey offspring... they are even worse than the original... and that's extremely hard to do... it's one of the biggest problems since they are on wgn and tbs, two stations carried on cable everywhere -dick vitale should have his voice box removed... of course, that means he is going to pound the table and jump in front of the camera, so let's remove his arms and legs as well -jon madden... please retire... you're stupid, annoying, and have nothing to say -bill walton is one of the most annoying announcers ever... i'd be more entertained if every time he spoke he was shocked.... bill... you're stupid, annoying and have nothing to say... go home, get stoned and listen to the greatful dead on your own time joe buck is the reigning king of baseball... hands down, and he ain't that bad at football either... i dunno if he will ever become the legend his father was, but joe will walk away from his career, at some point, with his dad beaming from ear to ear in heaven (and carey will be drunk off his ass saying something or another about how the cubs were robbed) gammons is damn good, but he is best in the studio and not actually at the game tim mccarver is pretty damn good too... i think he mostly calls yankee games (or at least he use to) dellacarma is pretty damn good for soccer bob costas is a mixed bag... he can be the best there is on virtually anything and then 15 seconds later you are wishing he would shut up and not use every word in the dictionary (anyone recall his meandering immediately after jordan and the bulls won their last title? i wanted to break my tv)
I"ll tell you who are the worst. Every single hockey commentator who works with ESPN. They are incredibly poor. From teh moron Buccigross, to Melrose and his irritating laugh, to Thorne not ever being able to call a player by their correct name, to Clement's pointless comments. They all suck and should be banned from teh broadcast booth. Another horrible one is Mary Carillo. People say she says it as it is. Too bad she says nothing, except for her love affair with Roddick. I hate her.
Play by play: Jon Miller - MLB Greg Gumble -NFL Gary Thorne - NHL Color: Peter Gammons - MLB Dick Vitale - NCAA Basketball Phil Simms - NFL
yeah... the hockey guys are pretty damn bad wynalda is incredible... breath of fresh air... i really wish he'd call national games as well... him and jp are the dream team for soccer in the u.s. didn't some nfl quarterback turned analyst (studio possibly) get his ass kicked by jimmy harbough back when jimmy was with the colts? jim evrett maybe? don't ******** with jimmy... he may not have been the greatest qb ever (or even close), but the guy knew how to take pain and how to fight... two favorite bears ever were jimmy and tommy waddle... both took a licking and kept on ticking... they were indestructible dennis miller honestly wasn't that bad when he did mnf... just not his target audience, so it didn't work out
wow did tom waddle take a beating in that playoff game vs the cowboys... he kept getting wacked.. and kept getting up... tough lad~
Good - Carillo & McEnroe, tennis Collins, basketball Keith Jackson, football Johnny Mac is the model color commentator. One of the few ex-jocks who resists the temptation to make the conversation about him. Bad - Vitale, basketball Packer, basketball Loud-mouthed tedious posers. I will not watch a game that Vitale announces. Not even with the sound off. Madden has his moments but he falls too much in the self-promoter camp to make the good list.
My favorites are Dick Enberg and Vin Scully. Scully is the LA Dodger announcer, Enberg a jack of many trades with NBC (though he began with baseball as well).
Joe Buck is the worst announcer ever. All he does is try to make funny jokes and spits out a few stats here and there in his monotone voice. I've never heard him show any enthusiasm in the booth which is very boring to me. Thom Brennaman should be the main announcer. So for baseball my favorites are Jerry Coleman (Padres radio announcer) and Rick Stucliff. The guys at ESPN are pretty good too. For soccer I like Sky's Martin Tyler and FSW's Allen Hopkins. Jack Edwards was pretty good but I don't get why people get so mad at some of the things he has said. Christian Miles is really good too. Hopefully some day Fox will air soccer. It would be weird to hear Max, Allen or Christian calling games on national TV instead of JP Dellacamera and Rob Stone.
I always enjoyed Vin Scully for baseball, I really wish he'd be back on some network. And I like Bob Uecker on baseball radio broadcasts. Our local hockey announcer, Pat Foley, is fantastic, it's too bad that he has to call games for a lousy team. Wayne Larrivee does some Bulls games and Big Ten football, but he is the absolute best radio football announcer I've ever heard--not even close. For soccer, my favorites are Martin Tyler and Ian Darke. For analysts, it doesn't get much better than Steve Stone. I like the way he thinks along with the game and tells why one pitch is better than another BEFORE the play, not after it. I also like Emmanuel Stewart for boxing, he usually has the fight figured out after one round, if not before.
I'm sure that some of the best are local personalities, like WSU's own Bob Robertson who has called Cougar football for 37 years (30 or so very lean ones!). He's fantastic, worth staying home from the game to listen to. UI has another icon, Bob Curtis, who will retire after the 2004 football season - his 47th (!) with the Vandals. I enjoy the soccer team at Univision quite a bit.
From the sports I follow and the announcers I have heard I would rate them as: Soccer: Favorite : JP Dellacamera & Tommy Smyth, Max Bretos & Allen Hopkins I love both of these teams. They bring a real enjoyment and spirit to the games they call. The team of Rob Stone and Eric Wynalda doesn't really work for me. Of course, Wynalda is an improvement over Keough but his enormous ego is so evident that it really takes the pleasure out of watching the games. I come away from the games vaguely depressed and feel like I just had to sit in a two hour meeting with my boss and smile like I was enjoying it. Boxing: Jim Lampley, Larry Merchant & either Roy Jones Jr or Emmanuel Steward. - The HBO crew is still the standard and far and away the best boxing broadcast in the business. Showtime has improved greatly when Al Bernstein replaced Bobby Czyz (and I thought it was Steve Albert who was the weak link). The ShoBox crew of Nick Charles and Steve Farhood is very professional but also very boring. The Fox team is a little crowded now that Max Kellerman has joined Sean O'Grady and the great Barry Thompkins. Still they are very good. ESPN fell off immensely when Bob Papa left and was replaced by Joe Tessitorre. Color man Teddy Atlas just will not shut up. There are times when Tesitore, who is supposedly the blow-by-blow guy will only talk maybe 15 seconds of a 3-minute round. The rest of the time Atlas is flapping his gums and repeating his cliches over and over again. Something is way out of whack when the color guy talks 80% of the time and the blow-by-blow guy only talks 20%. Should be the other way around. My favorite blow-by-blow guy would be "The Colonel" Bob Sheridan but he mainly works the international feeds of PPV fights so I rarely hear him anymore. MMA: Pride FC announcers Mauro Ranallo and Bas Rutten are great. Especially Rutten. UFC blow-by-blow man Mike Goldberg is good but color guy Joe Rogan of Fear Factor is terrible. Can't they get an ex-fighter to do analysis? It would really help their credibility.
Oh yeah, there is another soccer announcer I like and I think his name is Rob Hawthorn or something. He's English and I think he works for Sky. Alan Parry isn't that bad either.
For Premiership, it's Martin Tyler and Rob Hawthorne is very good too. Our American broadcasters could take notice of how efficient the English commentary is -- there doesn't need to be rambling commentary all the time just to fill space. Some of our soccer guys get this, but most other sports are more talk than action, which is annoying. Our soccer bests are JP, Wynalda and Hopkins. Edwards and Keough are -- and always have been -- an embarassment. It's terrible how far the broadcasting lags behind the level the game has reached for the US. I couldn't agree more with previous comments on ESPN hockey broadcasts -- everything is delivered with extreme smugness or hype, and hockey players and hockey fans are not at all about either of those traits. They just enjoy relevant insight and staying out of the way of the action -- which ESPN cannot do in any sport but baseball, and that will put you to sleep anyway. Another previous post mentions Chicago's Pat Foley -- a fantastic, long-time classy hockey broadcaster. The guy probably remains so good for so long because he never cared to go to ESPN and make every comment sound like a sound bite. The worst ever broadcast hire was Dennis Miller.
Alan Hopkins is great and I like the team of Max Bretos and Christian Bozzo doing the Argentine league. They work well together. Ricardo Mayorga on Telefutura is the best analyst in the game IMHO.
For soccer, at least this side of the pond, I think highest of JP, Derek Rae, and Joe Tolleson. You might remember him as the former Metros PBP guy and also the guy who called the USMNT's WCQ in Honduras in 2001. He also has done some Champions League games for ESPN, and I would love to see him do MLS. As for other sports, I happen to like Brent Musburger quite a bit; I know other people who don't but when he says "You are looking live at" place X at the beginning of a game I get chills sometimes. I also really, really like Verne Lundquist of CBS, who does college football and basketball now but has done plenty of other stuff too. My underrated pick is Kevin Harlan, who does college hoops on CBS and the NBA on TNT.
Whoever says Johnny Mcenroe is a good color commentator is wrong. This guy is all about himself, all the time. I mean they spent 5 minutes the other week (him and Enberg) talking about mc's new shoe. Give me a break. The guy is a joke. And Carrilo? Oh my. I'll just say this. ESPN can only do one thing very well, MLB. The NFL is alright. Everything else is a joke, especially their tennis broadcasting. They are so pro-American, and pro-Roddick it is sickening. I mean when everyone was ousted in the French, they showed the stupid Bryan brothers playing doubles instead of some other great matchs. Screw them. ESPN sucks.
Gary Thorne is the best hockey announcer in the business. Period. Nobody calls playoff games like him.
I've only had the pleasure of viewing ESPN soccer presentations on a handful of occassions, and each and every time it was spoiled by that twat Tommy Smyth. He is the worst co-commentator I've ever heard in my life. How he got that job, and has managed to hold on to it for so long, is a mystery to me. The amount of times he used the words "onion bag", you'd have thought he was on commission every time he said it. Haven't heard him in a while though, to be honest, so he might have improved (he certainly couldn't have gotten much worse).
Best American Soccer: Max Bretos/Alan Hopkins - This is a great team. their voices are pretty similar, but after watching so many games with this duo I have finally learned how to distinguish them. Max also does some international games and the rugby club, but man, max knows his soccer. He is sometimes a homer for the LA Galaxy, slipping and saying "we" sometimes, but nowhere near as homerish as those BBC guys during the Euro 2004 Tournament. Best English Soccer: Martin Tyler - This guy is great. his voice is easy to listen to, sticks to the facts, and gives credit where credit is due. In some highlight shows I have heard him commentating together with Andy Gray, but i like his regular FSW Premiership broadcasts when he is solo. Worst American Soccer: The chicago guys... man they are annoying. Eric "It's all about me" Wynalda sucks too. Worst English Soccer: Ian Darke... the guy talks just so he can hear his head rattle.