This is great. I love this topic. The point about trying to appeal to the casual observer more in 07 is a good one. DOB has a good voice, and that was probably #1 production value for the network. They probably also assumed that since DOB wasn't a "soccer guy" he could more easily make a connection with the casual audience. I also see a dramatic difference in the ABC broadcast compared to the ESPN/ESPN2. They *really* dumb it down for ABC. There are two ways to look at it, WHAT they say and HOW they say it. The more I think about it, the more I think that WHAT they say can't really ruin a game for me as much as HOW they say it. For me, a well called game comes down to 3 essential elements: 1. Rythm I hated Jack & Ty because they were such bafoons. But I have to admit to getting a lot more excited during Jack's call, because he knew how to adjust his rythm when things got going on the field. It really seemed to me that DOB would get annoyed when the action got in the way of his storytelling. If they insist on telling stories to create a connection with the audience, then fine - but make sure to spend the appropriate amount of time and words on it, and get back to the action. Understand when the game is exciting and adjust your speaking appropriately. If the action is exciting, get excited. 2. Focus American announcers feel like the broadcast is about them. I should be able to watch a game, enjoy it, and instantly forget who called it. Turning the voice down and crowd noise up would help, but these guys also need to realize that the game is the main event, and they are there to provide enhancement to it - not a distraction from it. 3. Honesty. Be honest about the players, and if the picture isn't rosy, then don't say anything at all. Don't tell me Kasey Keller is the best goalkeeper in the world, when he's not. Save the hype machine for the pregame shows and the special programming.
Your astute observations about the 3 Essential Qualities are almost certainly emblazoned on a NEVER board at ESPN hq. FIRST POINT -- there's no downtime in soccer to get into these fuzzy stories so they're better left out. However, taking WORDS out of an ESPN broadcast is the last thing they will ever do. For demostration, reference "ESPN National Hockey Night" circa 98-05. This leads to your SECOND POINT, ESPN's broadcast culture -- WUT!! YO, IT ALL ABOUT US!! YOU'RE THE MAN NOW, DOG!!! I'M NOT GONNA PAY A LOT FOR THIS MUFFLA!!! -- watch an ESPN broadcast of any sport, then watch an EPL match called by Martin Tyler and you get a real clear contrast of a pro vs a bunch of buffoons. THIRD POINT -- honesty is tricky, it eliminates an awful lot of really good chances to hype the hell out of the game when nothing's happening, and it cuts into the chances to use superlatives like "greatest" and "incredible". It really limits the broadcast's opportunities to piss on the knowlegable fan's back and tell him it's raining . . . it's just not the right move for the network at this time.
Is it just me, or does DOB find a way to always inject the line "what all the kids will be talking about tomorrow" when mentioning that Wynalda is doing a yellow card/red card segment at half-time? Mildly amusing the first time, but after six times, nobody can even fake a courtesy laugh anymore.
Its incredible that Disney/ABC/ESPN would continue to keep such a poor announcer like DOB on the air. Its painfully obvious how little the man knows. His lack of understanding along with his useless babble completely kills the matches plain and simple. Why not just use the Champions League guys who really know their stuff? The exception being Tommy Smyth who is a complete jackass. What job security he has despite his numerous mistakes and dumb analysis over the years. Maybe he can figure out what is offside is as well one of these days? Whatever happened to Mike Hill or Eddie Mighten? Their participation would be a major plus. How about Allen Hopkins who really knows the game and is very passioniate. His move from FSC was a big blow for them I thought, but he is hardly seen at Bristol. I only hope that ESPN decides to use the the aforementioned real soccer guys for the Euro 2008 coverage or go with the British announcers heard during the recent Youth World Cup. One final thing, if you want to hear another hideous announcer listen to FSC's Christian Miles. My God is he bloody awful. At least they have been smart enough to use the British announcers do the Serie A matches instead of that moron. Two guys who I really like are at GolTv, Ray Hudson and Lindsey Dean really get it, and provide excellent analysis and passion.
I agree here basically point-for-point. Mike Hill was a pleasure to listen to (what happened to him??), but I don't know Lindsey Dean as I don't get Gol. Tommy Smyth is a clown and Miles is awful. I'm sure they want American voices rather than Brits . . . in theory, I agree . . . but in practice, they've had 15 years to develop a competent American broadcast team and they're no closer than ever. At least the World Cup broadcasts feature some of the guys you don't hear regularly unless they're your local team's guy. I think JP is the best American voice, and I liked hearing Shep Messing during the Cup (but nobody else seems to like him). In the past 15 years, our players have become better, our coaching has improved, our league is more competitive, our fans are more astute and there are greater numbers of them, sponsorship is bigger than ever and the technical aspects of the coverage have shown improvement . . . so why do our broadcasters still sound like amateurs?
Jack Edwards ruined all his credibility in 2002 with his rampant USA jingoism. We need passion, but not cheerleading. I thought I was the only one who disliked Tommy Smyth. But apparently not. He broadcasts the Champions League games from a little room in Bristol, CT yet acts like he is there. Balboa mainly because he brings no interesting analysis and sometimes forgets how to speak. Wynalda is a mixed bag. He's a little like Keith Hernandez or Johnny Miller. He brings original thought but is frequently overcritical and over-the-top. I always thought Harkes was good. Maybe if he stays away from his broadcasting colleagues wives unlike he was unable to with his former teammates wives, then he can have a future in this business. I don't love Dave O'Brien. I agree that his learning curve on the game of soccer has been long and uninspiring. But despite being generic and unknowledgeable, he has good pipes and when he calls a goal, he doesn't sound like he's screaming(see Jack Edwards). Maybe if they get him a good cohort(Harkes) and he sticks around long enough to finally get it, then he could become good. As far as all the people who complain about the excessive talking, uh, this is America. If you want European style, then petition for someone British. Oh yeah, have you ever listened to Univision? Very little dead air there.
We need a Project 2010 for our World Cup announcers. Do you think there's room in the Bradenton dorms?
Yeah, I've listened to Univision and it sounds a lot like sitting in traffic at the border in TJ on your way back up to San Diego. Even worse is the production decision-making on most of the Spanish-language broadcasts looks like they have the team from "Sabado es GIGANTE!!!" handling the gamecast. The camera cuts are poorly-timed, the replays rarely show what's important, and the promos and game graphics cover the whole screen for about 15 seconds at a time, and they show 10-second singles of Hugo Sanchez as you hear the crowd react to a scoring chance.
DOB didn't start calling soccer games until shortly before the '06 Cup. I was covering soccer for the Daily Texan at the time when the whole DOB thing came into play. I spoke with another ESPN announcer at that time, one of the soccer only announcers at Bristol, when he gave me the head's up that "a baseball guy will be going to Germany instead of himself because he mainly wanted a free vacation overseas. And because he's been with the network longer than the soccer guys, ESPN is using the ol' seniority BS line and is actually going to have this guy cover a sport he knows nothing about." Two weeks later, DOB is shouting, "Jason Wolff with the ball, Jason Wolff!" and Balboa standing by his side not correcting him. Now, I'm sure DOB didn't simply just want a vacation, he wanted to expand his job description for more money and what better time to do so than during a World Cup year. Point is, DOB has not been on the job for 3 years. He's been on the job for just over one. It's one thing to bash the man on his calls for his inexperience and your lack of taste for his sort of style. But to base that on an exaggeration to make your point sound even stronger is just as wrong as his Jason Wolff call. I do think he is improving (I don't find myself shaking my head nearly as much now as I was during WC '06), but there are far better announcers out there. That being said, it seems to me he is dedicated to this sport now and is actually learning what the game is about and who the players are rather than literally depending on cue cards and ear prompts (although those are still evident from time to time). I'm still thankful that we live in a time when we can bitch about the calls the announcers are making every week while calling games on ESPN, FSC, GolTV, etc. It's taken a long time to get here. I still remember as a kid bitching because the broadcast of the U.S./Scotland game, of which just over 10,000 showed up to (that was a big crowd in the 80s), was cut away from with 10 minutes remaining for a bull riding contest. It's amazing how far this sport has come.
Ha. Seriously. I actually wrote a song during the 2006 World Cup about Marcelo Balboa's "almost goal" and his atrocious commentary....and sweet ponytail...
I love Ray Hudson's passion and I enjoy listening to him call a game--although sometimes he goes over the top with the "Would you stop talking about actors and tennis ball players--it's the gladiators out on the pitch who are putting their lives on the line!" type talk... but he's entertaining. Lindsey Dean, on the other hand, is an idiot.
Ray Hudson is over the top. Worse that Dick Vitale. Heard during the last game of the La Liga season, "And the Goal keepuh is at the other end having an absolute orgasm..." Sounds like half the time Ray's about to have an orgasm. Sometimes I enjoy him, the rest of the time if I listen for too long, my wife comes in from the other room and asks me to change the channel or mute the guy. If Martin Tyler didn't have a British accent half the people here would be crucifying him.
Fair enough, my mistake. So, he began in January 2006; called his first soccer game 5 months before the World Cup. His inexperience is still showing. Can't a pro broadcaster learn enough about soccer to sound more informed than O'Brien sounds? He's had a year and a half (rather than my previous claim of nearly 3 years) to learn the game and improve his call. But I'm not sure it's in the cards . . . when he was quoted in this USA Today article in 2006, he stands behind his approach as the outsider trying to deliver soccer to the non-soccer fans (I'm copying all the text rather than excerpting his quotes out of context): (BEGIN ARTICLE) Marked man: Dave O'Brien, the play-by-play announcer paired with analyst Marcelo Balboa on ABC/ESPN's lead World Cup soccer on-air team, says he faced hostility talking about balls hitting heads, not bats. "I'm a baseball guy," says O'Brien, who calls ESPN baseball. "And that's a dirty word among soccer enthusiasts. There was a backlash before I did a single game." That happened in January. Online and elsewhere, soccer die-hards weren't welcoming. O'Brien warns that talking about the prejudice he faced "is a dangerous story to write." (Dangerous being a relative term: Writing this doesn't seem like reporting from Iraq.) "There's kind of a petulant little clique of soccer fans. There's not many of them, but they're mean-spirited. ... And they're not really the audience we want to reach anyway." Networks airing big events most Americans don't follow — such as Olympic events — usually assume viewers need human interest touches to stay tuned. That can seem dumb or distracting to aficionados. Announcers in soccer-mad countries can be minimalist, O'Brien says, but he's "introducing story-telling elements. And that antsy clique I'm talking about doesn't want that — or any effort to entertain." U.S. soccer TV ratings, outside the Cup, are microscopic. And, O'Brien says, "If we cater to the clique, they'll stay there. Soccer hasn't been presented well to guys like me who played it in high school and are raising daughters on travel teams." So O'Brien, calling Germany-Poland today, wonders if he should "spend even 15 seconds describing what the Bundesliga is?" (Ja: It's a German soccer league.) "Should I explain what (soccer governing body) FIFA is? My 11-year-old daughter doesn't know. If I do that, the clique will say I don't know soccer. But we're putting on a TV product, not a soccer clinic." (END OF ARTICLE) I think it's pretty arrogant of him to claim his ignorance is our problem I think there's a better way to handle this, but his take sounds pretty condescending. Rather than admit something like "I have some things to learn about the game" or "our fans are knowledgable and expect a good standard", for him the astute fans are a petulant little clique who just want to watch a game while he holds storytime. I'm interested in the remark that the game's fans aren't the people he wants to reach anyway.
I think i agree with everything DOB said there. Im not a supporter of his, but he is right about needing to reach a wider audience
I also think the game needs to reach a wider audience, and I think a quality broadcast deserves quality broadcasters. Soccer's a simple game. So call the game on the field and tell the stories at halftime. Take 15 seconds and say the Bundesliga is Germany's top division, and Americans who have featured there include Steve Cherundolo and in the past Kasey Keller, Claudio Reyna, Eric Wynalda and Paul Caligiuri. The problem is that to do that effectively, it really helps to KNOW it first -- which he doesn't. SHOULDN'T he know that? I think he should. Is that asking for too much?
I wish nothing good upon Dave O'Brien. He is possibly the worst commentator this sport has ever seen. It's absolutely brutal listening to him. His phrases like, "from the kick," and "it's in to the back of the net(every goal)" makes me realize why soccer is hated by many. I would kill myself, if in turn, ESPN would never have him commentate again. GOD HELP US
It was really nice to hear last night's ESPN MLS game called by Glenn Davis instead of Dave O'Brien. Davis is far from my favorite, and I'd still like to see fewer stories from everyone, but he brought way more timely and relevant information to the broadcast than O'Brien ever has.
A great constructive point to offset my griping about O'Brien. Davis is a pleasure to hear. I wonder what prevents him from being our #1 pbp guy.
You didn't happen to do a breakdown of the time they weren't talking? That is to say compare the silent-time between those two matches and say a match by a professional soccer-only announcer? That statistic would tell a whole other story. Thx, Jay!
When GolTV was doing Copa, whenever the match would also be on a Spanish language channel, I would choose the Spanish station. I don't speak any Spanish. Yes, they talk a lot, but the difference (for me) between GolTV/FSC/ESPN's crews talking incessantly and Univision/Telefutura's crews talking incessantly is that I don't understand what the Spanish guys are saying, so I won't get annoyed at whatever stupid things they say. Not true with the English-speaking guys (Schoen/Hudson/O'Brien/Bretos/etc). Euro-English announcers (other than the American-based ones such as Smyth and Webster) say less. They also say fewer stupid things. They are consistant with pronunciation of names (something the Americans, in their efforts to get accent, inflection and all that crap "correct" constantly mess up in a very inconsistant basis - just say people's names like an average American would, and you'll piss off less average Americans - Philipe McShays? Gimme a ********ing break!). But most importantly (and this is a production thing), their voice volumes are at a decent level with the crowd noise. On FSC - England matches are fine with audio balance - until the "host" steps in and drowns the crowd with a message from Geico. Italian matches are fine (though crowd noise in Italy is less than England, Germany or Spain - and some US matches). But internationals called by a local FSC guy are way out of balance. Commentator's voice too loud. What does FSC do to screw this up? Same thing on GolTV. La Liga or Bundesliga matches with Euro-based commentary have a good balance with commentator voice to crowd noise. The instant the windbag Schoen is thrown on a match, the crowd noise noticably drops, and his voice is much louder than the Euro-based guys. Italy-France was the same way. ESPN at least does get the crowd noise right (when there's noise to broadcast). Overall, though, US based guys talk a lot, and say a lot of irrelevant or incorrect things when they talk. Just listen to Bretos or Schoen (O'Brien is obvious - but he's admittedly not a soccer guy) mess up calls throughout an entire match because they spend so much time treating the broadcast like a news and information show instead of a game in progress (forgetting that people tuned in to watch the game, not the news, which will be on later).
I think the problems with the audio mix are ocurring when the FSC commentator is giving commentary in an audio booth in LA while the game is happening in Europe or South America. I noticed this a few years ago on the replays of Serie A games, I don't know if they do it anymore. Somebody earlier said ESPN does the same for live Champions League mathces? I'd think they'd send a broadcast team to those matches . . .
Case and point: The Gold Cup Final and Feilhaber's goal. "Playing in the lower divisions of England-YEESSSSS!!!!! BENNY!! FEILHABER!!!!" He missed a good opportunity for an historical call.
My choice was exactly the same. After sampling the O'Brien/Balboa show for WC2006 for about 20 minutes, Univision became the easy choice to make. Although my Spanish skills are few, as a referee who works Latino league matches, I'm trying to improve so the Univision choice was a learning experience as well as the move to make to get away from O'Brien's idiocy. I did watch the Holland/Portugal QF match on ESPN or ABC as my girlfriend was watching with me (she fell asleep about 20 minutes in) but I kept with it even though O'Brien was just butchering the commentary. After a horrible interpretation of a tackle from behind at the 60-somethingth minute, I paused the match because I just HAD to write a letter to somebody at Disney/ABC/ESPN telling them just how badly O'Brien was doing (I'd be happy to post it here if anybody is curious...I never got a response from them). My main points were that O'Brien was so bad that Americans listening to his commentary knew LESS about the world's most popular game after listening to his interpretation of events on the field and that as a knowledgeable viewer, my preference for most of WC2006 was to watch Univision, not ESPN/ABC. Supporting my argument, I used these two (among others) plays analyzed by O'Brien: 1: Ball on touchline in referee's area of responsibility (about the beginning of the attacking third) with a quick play as the attack is moving down the field; was it ball out/ball back in or did the WHOLE ball not cross the WHOLE line? O'Brien's analysis: the referee was LAZY because he didn't get all the way to the touchline to make the call and therefore possibly affected the outcome of the match because the referee was LAZY!!! Moving quickly past the obvious (ball out of play is the responsibility of the AR), the second worst part of that call is that Balboa sat idly by MUTE and didn't point out the fact that the AR (who is, of course, standing there on the touchline) gets the responsibility of making that call, NOT the referee. Speaking of lazy, I challenge that idiotic fat-ass O'Brien to run with me anytime I work an adult match...much less to run with one of the world-class WC referees. BTW...how does O'Brien make most of his money??? Sitting on his butt talking about the slowest, most boring game in the world...maybe second only to cricket. 2. In the 60-some-odd minute, after a caution for a tackle from behind where the defender hacked the attacking player in his Achilles...O'Brien opined that the attacking player FAKED OUT the referee and wasn't really fouled, which was very good "football strategy" as he drew a caution for the offending player, and that his rolling around on the ground in pain was FAKING an injury, which was in actuality, also very good "football strategy" as it allowed his team to rest and recuperate. What a jackass. I pointed out that youth players in the USA would soon be receiving red cards for diving (earning the caution) and then rolling around faking an injury (second caution for unsporting behavior thus earning the red)...all encouraged as good, strategic play encouraged and endorsed by the knowledgeable sports commentators at ABC/ESPN. Anybody from Disney/ABC/ESPN care to chime in on my opinion? Or at least respond to the letter I sent a year and a half ago??? That letter ended up being 3 1/2 pages single spaced and was sent to the then-president of ABC sports, Shawn something-or-other...who obviously didn't read it as O'Brien is still working soccer games on TV.