My Five Biggest Pet Peeves in Sports Commentary

Oh the joy of watching my favorite teams one by one implode and get ready for a top draft pick next season, AND listening to painful sports commentary. There were some great moments yesterday, including Thom Brennaman’s call of that crazy Bears/Falcons game, and Ian Eagle with Matt Schaub’s QB draw to win it in Houston. Unfortunately, we’ve got the moans and groans at my place listening to Brian Billick contradict himself every other minute, or Brian Baldinger trying to eek out a proper sentence that we can all understand. Here are my biggest pet peeves of Commentatorboothville.

1. Too Many Announcers

There were days when 1 commentator was necessary. It still is in the UK for BBC’s English Premier League coverage. Just 1 play-by-play man who doesn’t need to go too deep into analysis because the viewer is smarter than you think, up in the commentary box, describing 90 minutes of Arsenal losing to some school team soccer. Apparently ESPN, FOX, CBS, HBO, and ABC have forgotten that. It is now common practice to have 3 commentators (1 pbp man and 2 analysts), and that means a lot of talking. Monday Night Football illustrates this point perfectly, because Tony Kornheiser and Ron Jaworski (I have some sympathy for Tirico, who is the only one doing a decent job) must think they get paid by the word. You will find yourself reaching for the mute button when there are too many talking heads for one football game trying to analyze a WR screen. It’s distracting, it’s pointless, it’s unneccessary.

2. Commentary from a studio

I can also handle when TWI call select Premier League games in their own country (the UK) from a monitor because there are not enough commentator positions in a soccer stadium, because first priorities get the best seats. However, what NBC did in the Olympics 2 months ago was inexcusable. You mean to tell me with all of the hoopla and your endless coverage and major amount of journalists you decided to call a little under half of the 34 events off of a monitor? Some of those include soccer, basketball, baseball, and tennis. If those events are being called off a monitor then are the announcers not just doing what you and I do (watch the gold medal match on a rectangular picture box)? You absolutely cannot say that you’re making the Chinese push the swimming to the morning so that you could broadcast it on primetime, and then say “Oh, for over a dozen events like baseball and soccer we’ll have the commentators at the studio because we got a budget issue”.

3. Commentating off of a monitor when you’re actually at the event

This annoys me more than off-tube commentaries. I was watching UFC on Spike TV the other night and couldn’t help but notice Mike Goldberg and Joe Rogan looking at their little monitor while live action was going on in the Octagon. For the entire round they looked up maybe once to watch Jon Fitch get torn limb from limb. You are 4 feet away from the actual fight and instead you’re looking at it on a screen? That makes no sense. There should be no screen looking unless there is a replay or something you couldn’t see from one angle and you had to look at it again. If you’re going to call a fight and literally be within touching distance of it, please don’t do it off a monitor. It’s a waste of time and it is pointless.

4. This hyperbole makes by brain hurt ten million times over, and the superlatives are the best ever

This applies mainly to the analysts, but play-by-play men do it as well. Hyperbole followed by a superlative in 1 sentence, then maybe 2 superlatives and a hyperbole in another sentence. It really gets tiring when I hear some offensive tackle from the University of Washington is one of the best in the country. I cringe whenever I hear “Is Tom Brady the greatest of all time?”, or “The fade pattern is by far the hardest route for a receiver to run.”. Kirk Herbstreit has this down to a tee, and now I know that at least 5 players per game are the best in the country. Don’t say best in the country when you haven’t seen all the games, don’t say the QB position is harder to play than any other position because it is all subjective. Analysts should not keep up with subjectivity, because they were hired for OBJECTIVITY. Describe the play to us, not show your never ending love for Brett Favre (cough)John Madden(cough).

5. Terry Sheddingham, Kyle Boller, and other player mispronounciations

Getting a really tough name like Mike Krzysewski wrong is fine, but goodness me how can you get Teddy Sheringham wrong? How can you mistake Kenny Cooper with Jeff Cunningham? No one is worse than this than David Pleat, Premier League pundit for ITV. This is just a short list of names he has pronounced wrong:

• Nani (Pronounced like Nanny, but Pleat thinks it’s Nano)
• Frank Lampard (Frank Redknapp to Pleat)
• Paul Scholes (pronounced Skoals, but it’s Paul Shoals to Pleat)
• Teddy Sheringham (Terry Sheddingham!)
• Teemu Tainio (Pronounced Tie-Knee-Oh, but it’s now Tayno!)
• Patrice Evra (Everice!)
• Roque Santa Cruz (He’s gone from a Paraguayan striker to Roque Junior, a defender, and a Brazilian thanks to Mr. Pleat)

I don’t make this up. Yesterday Brian Billick twice called Kyle Orton,”Kyle Boller”, and lest we forget Dick Stockton and the FOX crew come up with Rosario Dawson instead of Dante Rosario in week 1.

What Didn’t Make the List

The existence of Tim McCarver’s voice

Giving too much credit to one player on a great play

Being biased towards one player (Favre Favre Favre)

Dubbed commentary

There you have it. Do you have any agreements or disagreements on this list? If so, don’t comment here, go complain to CBS and maybe they’ll do something about it.