Sports Announcers: The Necessary Evil
Posted on 21 August 2008 by Michael Callaway
In my last post I talked about how much I love the Olympics and it is true, I do. However, there is a part of the Olympics that drives me crazy and I am talking about the announcers. To be fair, I rarely like the announcers in any sport, John Madden in for Sunday Night Football drives me to drink sometimes. “The team that scores the most points will win the game.”
I realize that the announcers are a necessary evil and when there is no sound it can be annoying. I think it is the excessive talking that bothers me the most followed by the over hyping. Every athlete is the best athlete in the world, be it Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Michael Phelps, the list goes on and on. My favorite is when they will say not only is he the best in the world but he is the best in the universe. Really? How many athletes have you been able to cover outside of this little ball of soil and water that we call Earth?
After Michael Phelps won his fifth gold medal the announcer said, rather boldly I might add, “We have been reluctant to talk about the prospect of Michael Phelps winning eight gold medals, now that he has five we can.” Really? You have been reluctant to talk about it? I can only imagine what the coverage would have been like if you had felt free to talk about.
Nothing against Michael Phelps, the four by 100 relay race and the 100 butterfly was nothing short of magical. I have never been so excited about a race in my life and can not believe the amount of training and will power it must take to do that. You can have 24 hours of Michael Phelps talk all you want, believe me, I understand. But do not lie to me and tell me that you have been reluctant to talk about it.
The announcers that bother me the most, the gold medal of annoying in my humble opinion belong to the gymnastics announcers. If I believed in a personalized hell, mine would be having those three follow me around and criticize my every move all the time and then shrieking with joy when I do something right.
It is always the same, one announcer is the voice of reason however they are ones most likely to say that so and so is the best athlete in the universe or mention how they are reluctant to talk about something that they have clearly been talking about. One will be the ultra critical announcer that sounds like a parent that you just can not please no matter how well you do and the final announcer is the shrieking voice of excitement when things go right.
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August 27th, 2008 at 2:02 pm
The only sport in which I actually appreciate the commentators and would enjoy the sport less without their input is car racing, especially Formula 1. There’s so much that goes into the maintenance and building of these cars as well as the strategy to get around the race track. I find that if I miss something that the commentators say, I actually rewind the recording so that I can catch it all. I’ve derived a similar level of education from the NASCAR and Indy Car announcers. But John Madden is part of the reason that I’m glad I don’t like the NFL as much as I used to.