1y ago

Why do sports commentators talk soft bullshit?

No shit skip, of course they shouldn't turn the ball over, or get red cards, or what the fuck ever. Passing gas in the bathroom and think it's perfume; literally shitty analysis I just heard on ESPN.

Why don't sports commentators actually break down plays and strategy?

Only one I can think of is jomboy breaks down pitches sometimes. Showed that the pitcher was releasing at the top of the throw for like 4 pitches of sliders then released like 20 degrees sidearm with another slider but because it was released differently it caught the batter and struck them out. Beautiful breakdown and I appreciated the sport and gamesmanship even more.

38 comments

I've done sports announcing, and come from a journalism family where my dad taught radio broadcasting.
Sports casting is hard. Like really, really hard. It is very easy to criticize the way someone does it, but it is incredibly difficult to fill hours of silence. I did live commentary for college wrestling, and I was a very knowledgeable high school wrestler, but frankly sometimes there just isn't something exciting or even describable happening. Jockeying for control, positioning, or feeling out an opponent - sometimes the announcing is "they continue struggling!" Then you think of a sport that isn't nonstop action like American football, or God forbid, baseball? Huge swaths of time where there is nothing to say. This is why professional sports casts on major networks have huge teams. They can pull up obscure stats that don't really mean anything, instant replay analysis done nearly live, and a ton of graphics to keep things moving and exciting.
Then you have the issue others have talked about, where your audience may have almost no knowledge of what to you is a deeply technical sport. So every time you explain a wrestling move, or defensive pass coverage, you have to assume no knowledge. You have to explain why someone is doing something, but luckily that actually fills up a bit more time because God forbid you have dead air on a broadcast, so of course you do it. And the type of deep analysis a knowledgeable fan might want is actually really hard to not only come up with live, but while watching something live without the benefit of watching a replay or a better camera angle.
Anyway, my point is that you should try to do an entry level sports broadcasting exercise. Turn the sound off on a game, and try to cast it and record yourself. You will be absolutely shocked at how much silence there is, or how many asinine things you say. Even the "worst" broadcasters that you experience on any major network have such insanely deep knowledge and an ability to just keep spewing information and anecdotes out that I promise you would be so much more impressive if you heard an amateur, or better, tried to do it yourself.
- Thoughtful response and insightful, thanks.
  If still feels like there's a niche for a broadcast that does take on the challenge of difficult live analysis. Like there's a chance for someone to deliver that content.
  I mentioned tony romo calling out reads in another comment. Give that guy a marker and a dry erase board overlay.
- And the type of deep analysis a knowledgeable fan might want is actually really hard to not only come up with live, but while watching something live without the benefit of watching a replay or a better camera angle.
  At best, this kind of analysis is given a few minutes in between periods/quarters/halves/innings between commercial breaks and any other stories the network wants to cover.
  Even if the announcer gets a generous 25 minutes between when the play happened and when they get a 2 minute spot to talk about it, that's a pretty tight deadline to get a video package together and come up with some talking points. There aren't a lot of people who have both the knowledge of the sport and the skill to put it together in a way that everyone will understand.
  As an aside, there's an installation at the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto that lets you try your hand at recapping a few games. It's tough even with a script. The announcers are doing it live.

Because most viewers don’t want actual analysis, they just want meaningless drama. ESPN has more or less turned sports fandom into the real housewives for men imo.
- It is really frustrating. I blame Stephen A. Smith and Skip Bayless. Kidding, but seriously. That style of commentary is absolute crap. Yelling is not an affective way to get your point across.
  
  TO ME THAT'S ABSOLUTELY RIDICULOUS
  
  IT'S PLENTY AFFECTIVE :(((
- I'm really into hockey, and I feel the reddit sub is 99% hockey-themed soap opera content, like what players are getting divorced from their wives and such. It's so boring to me. I just want to see highlights, trades, stats, etc. But it's very clear that the sub wants to see this type of content, so I guess give the people what they want.
  
  When the regular season starts it will probably get better.

- There's a few good fgc commentators that move the needle. Sajam is pretty good.
  For other esports, I never touched a lol stream, though. Would be nice to hear good commentary on cs.
- watch euro lol casters versus american
  it’s a us thing

Sometimes they do. You have two major commentators for sports.
Analysts, which do break down plays, but usually during breaks and halftime/intermissions because analysis takes longer and is HARD to do in real time.
Then you have color commentators who call the game live and are really there to fill the dead air and bring excitement to the broadcast. Their job is not to do analysis, it’s to call the game in real time and bring excitement to it.
In regards to Jomboy, his videos are great and in depth, but it takes a few days after something happens for him to get that video out. In depth analysis like that is not something you can do in real time.
If you want analysis there’s a ton of it out there. Just not in real time.

They get paid to talk - being good at it is just bonus points. So while, if they notice something in the strategy they'll break it down, but if they don't notice or can't think of anything to say, they'll just state the obvious to keep the commentary going. That's one thing I appreciate about the Formula 1 announcers, one of them has racing experience so they constantly break down and analyse the strategy in real time, and very rarely add useless filler talk.

They keep it at the level of sophistication that the average sports viewer can grasp.

They're not reporters; they're entertainers.

Some of them do break down plays and strategy during the game to an extent. The issue with having more analysis during the game is that it takes time to explain details, which isn't always a luxury that sports commentators have. The last thing most people want is for the broadcast to miss an exciting play because the commentators were too busy explaining the previous play in detail.
- aye. they ain't got time to explain the history of the wildcat offense and how it's evolved into the 3x3 and bla bla bla cuz half their audience doesn't care, is drunk, and wants to hear about the play thats going on right now.
  it's a low level drone until something important happens and i means i need to look at the screen. otherwise watching the whole thing in silence would be weird.
  
  I would prefer the option to watch in silence (game sounds only), honestly. I love the experience of going to a game and I don't need people telling me why plays are important or that a player just exceeded some random stat to enjoy it.

"He's a real physical player!"
Yeah, I didn't think the NFL fielded ghosts.
- I'm now imagining some sort of cross between Ghostbusters and Angels in the Outfield, but with football.

the pitcher was releasing at the top of the throw for like 4 pitches of sliders then released like 20 degrees sidearm with another slider but because it was released differently it caught the batter and struck them out. Beautiful breakdown and I appreciated the sport and gamesmanship even more.
The only people who want that are baseball fans. Hockey fans will put up with about 10% of that, football fans will put up with about 5% of it, and basketball fans won't even listen in the first place. Sports fandom hasn't grown as fast the population, and the people who do like sports don't like them in the same way they traditionally used to. Sports coverage now has to be as surface-level as possible to retain an audience who will flip channels once you start talking about catch probability and wRC+, exacerbated by E!SPN aggressively marketing down to the lowest possible denominator and withholding coverage of sports they consider to be too complicated.
tl;dr the dumb masses don't want to listen to no book larnin from no city slicker
- I think the fans do like actual in-depth analysis, it's just no always possible real-time.
  Jomboy's breakdowns are fantastic, but he's not able to do that during a live broadcast.
  The NFL pioneered game analysis with John Madden and the telestrator, and that is used in all sports broadcasts now. For that, you need the camera work to see and record the action, the expertise to realize there is something to analyse, and the ability to analyse it, and you need the time to show the analysis in a break in play or during an intermission

If you want analysis, you're not going to find it on television. You're more likely to find written analysis from experts, and occasionally some video breakdowns.
As for American football, Brian Baldinger puts his breakdowns on the website formerly known as Twitter. JT O'Sullivan has a YouTube Series called QB School that is very informative. It's out there, but you've gotta look for it.

Because, most sport is just bullshit rules that have been around long enough to seem not-weird.
I mean think about it.
- Sure. Chess is insane nonsense. It's still more fun when someone who cares about the game talks about it competently.
  
  for an example... you've got John Madden. one of the "best" announcers. at least, he's the only announcer I know by name, as far as I'm concerned, American football is just a bunch of people in tights chasing other people in tights. fighting over something called a "pigskin".
  It would be patently absurd to say that Madden doesn't care about the sport. He was player, retired into announcing. made amassive franchise off this stuff. with doozies like:
  See, well ya see, the thing is, he should have caught that ball. But the ball is bigger than his hands.
  The best way to gain more yards is advance the ball down the field from the line of scrimmage.
  Usually the team that scores the most points wins the game.
  and those are just three of the many dozens I found inside of a ten second websearch.
  It's okay to enjoy the game. Don't get me wrong. I can understand why people enjoy playing any sport or any activity. But there's something patently absurd about paying a guy millions for his ability to catch an oblong shaped ball. or put a ball through a basket. Or whack a ball into tiny little cups. never mind some guy who can beat the shit out of the other.
  Embrace the absurdity. it's okay. BTW, battlebots is where it's at.

Some do, but it is rare to find people who can be good on camera as well as on the field. These are usually former players or coaches who were put in front of a camera. Joe Madden is usually considered a decent example of this.
However, in most cases, sports journalism is really more about finding the entertaining story behind the game to drum up interest. When you are trying to tell a story, parts of the game no longer matter.
- Thought tony romo was good explaining some of the reads he was seeing and why.
  
  Yeah, and I almost used Romo as the example instead of Madden.
  But it is important to note that Romo played several years as a high level NFL quarterback and was able to bring his experience to commentating, which requires a very different set of skills.
  The ability to understand a sport at a high level and the ability to communicate a person's knowledge to lay people are two very sought after skills that do not overlap that much.

I love when they start talking about non-sports topics and typically throw in a fake fact, misnomer, stereotypes, misconceptions.
My favorite being "Oh, I heard airplanes cant take off when its too hot because the wheels will melt on the runway."

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