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.
It wasn’t because of minor league baseball that Joe and Adam ended up doing network play by play.
It’s because they are exceptional talents who are uncommonly dedicated to their craft.
It didn’t matter where they started. Whether it was minor league baseball or tiddlywinks, they were going to end up doing network play by play.
For everyone else, minor league baseball is likely not the right avenue.
One benefit of minor league baseball is it does accelerate your development as a play-by-play broadcaster because you get hundreds of on-air hours in a relatively short period of time.
If you want to do TV play-by-play, you need to go where you can get those reps.
Four places to get TV play-by-play reps:
1. College
Hoard as many reps as you can on campus. Otherwise, they will be hard to get after you graduate.
2. Local cable
Your local cable company might broadcast high school football and basketball or small college sports. Try to pick up some games.
3. Internet
Increasingly more high school and small college sports are streaming on the Net. They are often low budget productions using local talent, so the barrier for entry is lower. Prior TV experience is often not necessary for those gigs.
4. ESPN 3
Most E3 broadcasters are hired by local conferences and schools and not by the network. So, like I mentioned with doing high school games on the Internet, the barrier for entry is lower. Find out what schools in your area are doing E3 games, then approach them with your desire to be part of it.
