US Fans Petition for New Television Announcers

March 5th, 2006 | by: WC Bob |

As our man Daryl on the USA blog pointed out last week, US fans are suffering through some of the worst broadcast announcing since the invention of television. It was only a matter of time before they decided to take action to petition ESPN to get its act together before the World Cup. Even if you aren’t in the United States and you have never watched ESPN, go ahead and sign this one. Consider it your good deed for the month.

International Football News – World Cup Blog RSS Feed

http://correira.com/2006/03/05/celo-do-you-think-the-cold-is-bothering-the-players Pseudo Corner Kick – Dedicated to news and analysis of the US National Soccer team and its players. » Celo, do you think the cold is bothering the players???

[...] Celo, do you think the cold is bothering the players??? By john As hard as it is to get respect for US MNT soccer from ESPN (or any other English speaking media outlet for that matter), do we really want to be raising hell about who the announcer is? With all the World Cup games being shown, and in HD for that matter, is this looking a gift horse in the mouth? [...]
Chris

Take John Motson from the BBC, please.
Derral

your help to keep the game presented in a beautiful fashion. support our petition to bring quality announcing to ESPN not some idiot American who knows nothing of the game rambling for 90 minutes about nothing. Please go here and sign our petition. Yes actually we do want to raise hell. Most people don’t have HD tvs here so that’s less of an issue. But there are people who have been raise on the game in the states and part of the reason it has trouble selling here is soccer is presented like a joke. Announcers are not skilled, don’t know their craft and use poor technique. In many american sports there are time outs and lulls in action. Like in Baseball. So announcers talk all through the match to fill time similar to a radio announcer. But soccer goes the entire time and these announcers aren’t steeped in the lore and history of the game. They called Celtic Glasgow United last week. They spent 5 minutes talking about Casey Keller’s castle while there are attacks going on and the announcer ignores it. Understand this is a huge thing in making the game continue to grow here.

http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/World_Cup_Announcers
John Mathews

Please end this nightmare. Is there any PPV package I can buy with British announcers? I am a huge soccer fan and got started with British announcers on FSC. They are great. These baseball announcers are boring and it is sad that people who only watch soccer every 4 years have to go through this. Everyone would much rather have smart commentary with an attractive British accent.
Maureen Byrne

The reason I am on this site is because I have been so delighted with the British announcers of World Cup 2006 I am looking to send an email to thank them for the great chuckles I have enjoyed whilst watching all the games. They are droll, intelligent and extremely knowledgeable.