A sportscaster said, “I’ve applied for a couple of hockey play-by-play jobs. I worked for a team six years ago but it was my first job. I’ve grown a ton as a broadcaster and that hockey is representative of what I would do now.
“What should I do?”
There are two solutions for replacing old demo material.
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A friend of mine was doing high school play-by-play in a small Midwest market. He couldn’t be choosy about his analyst so he ended up with somebody who had never done it. Several plays went by without the analyst saying anything. Finally, after the fifth play, the analyst piped up and said, “The red team plays good defense.”
What do you do if you’re working with an analyst who isn’t talking much?
The best thing to do is find a new analyst! In a small market with no budget, though, that might be easier said that done. Besides, having someone who talks little is sometimes better than having nobody at all.
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There’s a music documentary that answers a question many sportscasters have:
Why have I not made it to the top?
20 Feet from Stardom is a highly acclaimed documentary about backup singers in the music industry. Even though they are often as talented as the people for whom they’re singing, they stay in the background, always 20 feet from the spotlight.
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Imagine this scene: You’re watching television. Somebody has just won a championship — a Super Bowl, a National Title, the Final Four or something similar. There’s confetti falling. A sportscaster stands atop a podium interviewing the winning players and coaches. People are kissing the championship trophy. Pandemonium. Then they go to commercial, come back from break, and there’s some poor sap standing outside a locker room getting ready to interview the losing coach.
What do you do if that poor sap is you?
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A radio station sports director in the Midwest is concerned that his employer’s decision to move their play-by-play broadcasts online is going to hurt the legitimacy of his career.
Are those concerns well-founded?
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A small market TV sports director asked me if minor league baseball is the fastest way to network TV play-by-play for all sports.
Joe Davis and Adam Amin are fabulous TV broadcasters who started their careers in minor league baseball. From their examples, though, many young broadcasters now believe that minor league baseball is the best way to network TV play-by-play.
It’s not.Read More
(In a sleepy, unenergetic voice). “He’s at the 10, the 5, and scampers into the end zone for the touchdown.”
Oh my goodness! Who wants to listen to passionless play-by-play?
Passionless play-by-play is lifeless and boring – and a bored audience tunes out. Here are three tips if you’ve been told you need to increase your play-by-play energy:
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Editing my play by-play demos used to be so frustrating.
Either I would find the perfect segment, except it took 45 seconds or a minute to get to the play-by-play. Or if it started in a timely fashion, there was something afterward that I didn’t like.
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Have you ever been doing play-by-play when two, or maybe even three, players on the court share the same last name?
Years ago, I broadcast a high school football game in the worst conditions imaginable for a broadcaster.
Dense, impossible to see through fog.
At kickoff, the fog was hanging threateningly low over the field. By the second half, I couldn’t see fans sitting five rows in front of the press box, much less the field or even the sidelines.
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