Sports Commentator - Types of Sports Broadcasters

Types of Sports Broadcasters

Play-by-play announcers are the primary speakers, valued for their articulateness and for their ability to describe the events of an often fast-moving contest. Color commentators are valued for experience and insight into the game, and are often asked questions by the play-by-play announcer to give them a topic for analysis. The latter most often have gained their experience in the sport as a player and/or coach, while the former is more likely to be a professional broadcast journalist than a participant in the sport, although there are numerous exceptions to these general trends.

The most common format for a sports television broadcast is to have one of each type. An example is NBC Sunday Night Football in the United States, which is called by Cris Collinsworth, a former American football receiver, and Al Michaels, a professional announcer. In the United Kingdom however there is a much less distinct division between play-by-play and color commentary, although two-man commentary teams usually feature an enthusiast with formal journalistic training but little or no competitive experience leading the commentary, and an expert former (or current) competitor following up with analysis or summary. There are however exceptions to this - all of the United Kingdom's major cricket and snooker commentators are former professionals in their sports, while the legendary Formula One racing commentator Murray Walker had no formal journalistic training and only limited racing experience of his own.

Another difference between the two types is that color commentators will almost always announce only a sport in which they played or coached, while play-by-play announcers, such as Michaels and David Coleman in the UK, may have careers in which they call several different sports at one time or another. However, Brad Daugherty, a former professional basketball player, appears as of 2012 on coverage of NASCAR auto racing on ESPN.

Although the combination of a play-by-play announcer and one or more color commentators is standard as of 2012, in the past it was much more common for a play-by-play announcer to work alone. Vin Scully, longtime announcer for the Brooklyn/Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team, is one of few examples of this practice still existing today.