For a lot of sports fans, getting ready to watch a game on television or listening to a game on the radio is more than just about the players on the field, court and ice. Part of the fabric of sports these days is also knowing who is in the broadcast booth. Whether you’re talking about it with a co-worker next to the water cooler or reading about it in a sports media column, everyone has an opinion about sports broadcasters.
There are beat writers who cover teams. There are columnists who cover sports in general. There are sports talk show hosts who break down what’s happening in sports on a daily basis. And there is now a plethora of reporters who cover sports media.
There is a fascination among sports fans as to who is calling the games.
“I’m not surprised at all because I’ve been covering it for a long time,” said Jimmy Traina who covers sports media for SI.com.
“Even before I covered it, everyone has an opinion on the announcers in least in my world. I’ve always been able to write about that at SI and they’ve always gotten a good response.”
Growing up a huge sports fan in New York, Traina dreamed of being a play-by-play announcer. He loved to hear Phil Rizzuto call Yankees games on Channel 11 and then became an avid listener of the Mike and the Mad Dog show on WFAN. While still having a passion about the games themselves, Traina developed a keen interest in the business and has carved out a career covering the sports media.
“I’ve always been into the broadcast world,” said Traina who writes a daily Traina Thoughts column for SI.com and hosts the weekly Sports Illustrated Media Podcast.
“The older I got, the more I found myself more of the sports media than the games sometimes. ESPN and SportsCenter was a huge part of my life back in the day before the internet. It’s always been there and has always been an interest.”
The sports media business has always kept Traina busy, but during this past off-season, the NFL broadcasting world was turned upside down with some blockbuster comings and goings.
Joe Buck and Troy Aikman departed FOX and signed on with ESPN to call Monday Night Football.
Kevin Burkhardt and Greg Olson were elevated to replace Buck and Aikman as the number one FOX team and it was also announced that legendary quarterback Tom Brady would join Burkhardt when his playing career is over.
There was a changing of the guard at NBC as Mike Tirico replaces Al Michaels as the lead play-by-play voice of Sunday Night Football.
Michaels will still do some games for NBC but he also signed on to be the lead play-by-play announcer for Thursday Night Football on Amazon Prime Video where he will be teamed with ESPN College Football analyst Kirk Herbstreit.
That was a lot of sports media news to cover.
“It was fantastic from a content standpoint,” said Traina. “We got so much content out of it on a daily basis. I also recognize that I think this was sort of a once in a lifetime deal. The only thing that is up in the air right now in terms of the top NFL teams is when Tom Brady will retire and join the Fox booth. But everything is sort of settled now.”
The game of sports announcer “musical chairs” was fascinating to follow because of the big names that were on the move and the amount of money that was being paid to the big-name broadcasters on the move.
And that begs a couple of questions…
Why would networks dole out big bucks to sportscasters?
Do the announcers really have an effect on whether or not you will watch a particular sports game?
“Do I think that someone is going to sit down and watch a three-hour game because of an announcer? Absolutely not,” said Traina.
“But, if I’m flipping the channels at 11:30 on a Thursday night and I hear Bill Walton calling a Pac-12 game on ESPN, will I leave it on for five or ten minutes to hear how wacky Bill Walton is? Absolutely. No fan of any sport is going to watch a game for three hours because of an announcer.”
Another big sports media item has been leagues signing deals with streaming services. Many sports fans have been up in arms over this as now it will cost more money to watch games that you were already getting on over-the-air television, your regional sports network, or on various national cable networks like ESPN.
The NFL sold their Thursday Night Football package to Amazon Prime Video.
Major League Baseball signed streaming deals with Apple TV+ and Peacock while the New York Yankees took 25 games that were on free television in New York and sold them to Amazon Prime Video.
And as part of the National Hockey League’s new television deal with ESPN, some exclusive national games were shown on ESPN+ meaning that they could not be shown by those teams’ regional sports networks.
“It works in some cases and it doesn’t work in other cases,” said Traina. “In terms of the NFL and Thursday Night Football, I think it works. It’s a standalone national game. It’s the NFL. This country is addicted to the NFL. It is our crack cocaine. People will do what they have to do to watch the NFL.”
The baseball streaming is a completely different story.
If you’re a Yankees fan, you needed to subscribe to three streaming services in order to have access to all 162 regular season games.
If you’re a fan of any Major League team, you had to get used to Sunday morning games and just having to navigate through a new broadcast world.
“For baseball, I think baseball despises its fans and I think it’s been proven out with these streaming deals,” said Traina.
“Nobody is watching Peacock at 11:30 on Sunday morning. Nobody is watching Apple on a Friday night. It is so detrimental to the game it’s not even funny. Baseball has become a localized sport. People are into their local teams. You yank their local teams and you put them on a service where people can’t see it and I think it’s very bad for the game.”
The landscape of sports broadcasting has certainly changed over the years. It was a pretty big deal when the NFL first brought Sunday Night Football to ESPN in 1987.
The NFL on basic cable? Really?
But that was just the start in how the sports broadcasting world was going to change as now we can watch games on our mobile devices and we’re infatuated with the talent and what network is doing the game.
But what’s next?
What is the next big thing to happen to sports broadcasting?
Traina has been looking at his crystal ball.
“There’s been a lot of talk of ESPN becoming direct to consumer where you can just get ESPN as a standalone,” said Traina.
“I think that would be surprising but I definitely can see it happening. So many people, especially 35 and under, are cutting the cord (with cable) so I can see where it would make sense for ESPN to go direct to consumer. I can absolutely see them doing this and even though I can see them doing it, it would be one of those surprising moves.”
As we gear up for the Major League Baseball pennant/playoff races and the start of the NFL season, there will certainly be plenty of opinions on how the games are going to be presented by the networks and streaming services and how the announcers are calling the games.
Here’s one thing that’s for certain…
Jimmy Traina will have his thoughts on what’s going on.
Peter Schwartz writes weekly sports radio features for Barrett Media. He has been involved in New York sports media for over three decades, and has worked for notable brands such as WFAN, CBS Sports Radio, WCBS 880, ESPN New York, and FOX News Radio. Peter has also served as play by play announcer for the New Yok Riptide, New York Dragons, New York Hitmen, Varsity Media and the Long Island Sports Network. You can find him on Twitter @SchwartzSports or email him at DragonsRadio@aol.com.
