I once received a call from a college senior who was interested in pursuing a play-by-play career. He told me his name and where he attended college. Then he was quick to add, “I am the guy who was on SportsCenter recently with my call of that dramatic game-winning play.”

Uhhh…dude. Don’t brag about it. You made SportsCenter’s Top 10 not because your call was good, but because you screamed so loud and so long that you sounded like a caricature of a sports broadcaster.

Screaming is not good play-by-play.
Read More

A frustrated young play-by-play broadcaster told me that his ability would shine through if only he were provided sufficient resources – statistics, biographical information on players, etc.

I told him that I couldn’t disagree with him more.

Standout athletes excel even under adverse circumstances. Talented play-by-play broadcasters do the same thing.

Working high school and other games where background information is unavailable will reveal your ability as a play-by-play broadcaster. If you are going to execute an engaging broadcast, you are going to have to rely upon the two most basic fundamentals: storytelling and description.

Read More

Once you have the seven fundamentals of basketball play-by-play down cold, these five bonus tips will help make you a star!

1. Be clear about which team has the ball

This is the most common mistake in basketball play-by-play. There are a lot of changes of possession in basketball. You can’t count on all of your listeners knowing which team has it based only upon the names of the players.

Read More

How would you answer this question: What bad sportscasting advice do you hear being shared most often?

The bad advice I hear most often is that painting the picture is the most important aspect of great play-by-play. Painting the picture is important, but there’s something that’s more important.Read More

One of the toughest challenges for play-by-play broadcasters are pregame and postgame interviews. They can easily get monotonous because you feel like you are asking the same questions over and over again.

Keep this in mind, though: Every interview should be different because each game is different.

Here are some suggestions for keeping your interviews fresh. We’ll address postgame first, because it will partially set-up the following pregame interview as well.
Read More