Sports TV News
Strong Stands Out At Fox Sports
Published
9 years agoon
Soccer has been growing in popularity in the U.S. in recent years, but most of the announcers for the game still come from other countries. John Strong is one of the few American play by play announcers for Fox Sports’ Major League Soccer broadcasts, and he started here in the Pacific Northwest. Strong began his career announcing his high school football games on the internet, and quickly worked his way up to one of the TV announcers for the Portland Timbers.
On early success:
“The first ever Timbers MLS game in 2011 was in Denver. And I was at the time 25 and I remember in the minutes leading up to the game I actually got a little bit teary-eyed … ‘this is all happening!’ As a young kid, at the time … when British voices were seen as in vogue because that’s what you need to have to have an authentic soccer broadcast … and I had next to me Robbie Earl, an incredibly accomplished player and broadcaster … I had a lot of insecurity, truth be told, about what I was doing.”
On being a Blazers fan and the appeal of sports announcing:
“The way that I lived my fandom as a young kid was through the voice of Bill Shonley. And I think in retrospect the romanticism of that voice being the connection between you and the team … and that always really appealed to me … being able to be a voice that narrates, in this case for me, the growth of soccer, and the burgeoning of a new era for the sport in this country.”
On his personal play by play style:
“Rather than shout ‘GOOOAAAALL!’ —which I can’t do, it sounds terrible, it’s not authentic. But what I will do is if there’s a player who has a vowel sound at the end of their last name I’ll [draw out the last syllable of the player’s name] … that’s an influence from Spanish language broadcasting.”
On the popularity of soccer in the US:
“The growth of soccer in this country has been generational. There was never going to be a big bang moment of the U.S. wins a World Cup … and all of a sudden 40 million Americans wake up soccer crazy. … A lot of the predictions trying to tie youth participation to fans being adults … completely false. Otherwise tetherball would be a sport we see on ESPN2.
“What it took was a generational shift … When I was in elementary school, we all played soccer on the weekends, but at recess we were all wearing our Blazers or our football jerseys playing kickball. I go past [my old elementary school now] and they’re all playing soccer on the playground. “
Credit to OPB who originally published this article
Jason Barrett is the owner and operator of Barrett Sports Media. Prior to launching BSM he served as a sports radio programmer, launching brands such as 95.7 The Game in San Francisco and 101 ESPN in St. Louis. He has also produced national shows for ESPN Radio including GameNight and the Dan Patrick Show. You can find him on Twitter @SportsRadioPD or reach him by email at [email protected].
Sports TV News
Report: ESPN Seems Likely to Renew NFL Draft Media Rights
ESPN has been broadcasting the NFL Draft since 1980.
Published
44 mins agoon
April 19, 2024By
BSM Staff
ESPN has been the broadcast home of the NFL Draft since 1980, and the property has become one of the network’s hallmark events within its overall coverage of the National Football League. Analyst Mel Kiper Jr. will return on the airwaves this year for the broadcast of the event, which will include separate feeds on ABC and ESPN on Thursday night.
ESPN has had the rights to the event for several years and attained improvements in ratings with an average of approximately 9.73 million viewers across networks on Day 1 last year. As a whole, the NFL Draft attained a total, unduplicated audience of 54.4 million viewers over the course of the three days on ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN Deportes, NFL Network and additional digital platforms, and will make its return next Wednesday from Detroit, Mich.
John Ourand of Puck News reported that the deal for ESPN to broadcast the NFL Draft will expire in 2025. Within his report, he noted that ESPN is likely to renew its deal with the league, but other media companies could be interested in exploring potentially assuming the property. Some of the companies Ourand includes within his report are FOX, NBC and perhaps Amazon.
ESPN announced its plans for coverage of the 2024 NFL Draft earlier in the week, which will include two broadcasts on ESPN and ABC for the first two days. This year’s draft class contains several top-tier college quarterbacks who will be looking to make an impact at the NFL level, including USC star Caleb Williams. The Chicago Bears hold the first-overall pick for the 2024 NFL Draft and are projected by several insiders to select Williams after trading away quarterback Justin Fields earlier in the offseason.
ESPN and NFL Network will bring back a crossover element to the NFL Draft broadcast this year, something that both entities collaborated on in 2020 and 2023. On Tuesday, April 16, Kiper Jr. will appear on NFL Network for NFL Total Access. ESPN NFL insider Field Yates will appear on NFL Network Wednesday, April 17 for Path to the Draft while NFL Network analyst Steve Smith Sr. appears on SportsCenter. Both programs will last from 6 to 7 p.m. EST on their respective networks. Mina Kimes will appear on Move the Sticks Thursday, April 18 on NFL Network, while Kurt Warner and Daniel Jeremiah will be on Get Up and NFL Live, respectively, the following day.
Sports TV News
NBA TV Announces Playoff Coverage, Gus Johnson to Call Game 2 of Pacers-Bucks
Coverage of games throughout the NBA Playoffs on NBA TV will include pregame, halftime and studio coverage as well.
Published
3 hours agoon
April 19, 2024By
BSM Staff
Warner Bros. Discovery has announced coverage plans for the first round of the National Basketball Association Playoffs on NBA TV, which includes back-to-back nights of live game broadcasts beginning on Monday, April 22. The Orlando Magic and Cleveland Cavaliers will face off from Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse in Cleveland, Ohio featuring play-by-play announcer Kevin Calabro, analyst Brendan Haywood and sideline reporter Lauren Jbara. This will mark Jbara’s playoff debut with NBA TV, which comes after officially joining TNT Sports last fall. Calabro, Haywood and Jbara will also return on Thursday, April 25 at 7 p.m. EST for Game 3 between the Magic and Cavaliers from Kia Center in Orlando, Fla.
The second game of the series between the Indiana Pacers and Milwaukee Bucks will be presented on NBA TV at 8:30 p.m. EST and features the return of Gus Johnson behind the microphone for playoff action. Johnson, who serves as the lead play-by-play voice for college football and college basketball coverage for FOX Sports, will work with Jim Jackson and Dennis Scott on the call from Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisc.
Over the course of the 2023-24 NBA season, Johnson filled in on select New York Knicks game telecasts on MSG Networks, where he previously served as an announcer and studio host for 16 years. Coverage of games throughout the NBA Playoffs on NBA TV will include pregame, halftime and studio coverage as well.
NBA TV could televise up to nine games throughout the 2024 NBA Playoffs depending on the outcomes of the individual series. Star players such as Paolo Banchero, Damian Lillard, Tyrese Haliburton and Donovan Mitchell are expected to participate across the matchups. The league-owned broadcast entity jointly managed by the NBA and Warner Bros. Discovery is coming off its most-viewed season since 2015-16.
TNT Sports will also present playoff games on TNT and available to stream utilizing the B/R Sports Add-On through Max. Coverage will conclude with the Western Conference Finals with a spot to compete for the Larry O’Brien Trophy in the balance.
Sports TV News
ESPN Averages 3.25 Million Viewers for NBA Play-In Tournament Doubleheader
The matchup between the Philadelphia 76ers and Miami Heat is the most-watched Eastern Conference Play-In game of all time.
Published
6 hours agoon
April 19, 2024By
BSM Staff
Four Eastern Conference teams took the court on Wednesday night for the first two games within the 2024 National Basketball Association Play-In Tournament, both of which were broadcast by ESPN. The network’s NBA on ESPN broadcast property began its live game coverage with a matchup between the No. 7 Philadelphia 76ers and No. 8 Miami Heat, which featured stars such as Joel Embiid, Jimmy Butler and Tyrese Maxey.
A dramatic late-game comeback secured a one-point victory for the 76ers and attained an average of 3.40 million viewers on ESPN and ESPN2, which is up 52% over last year’s matchup between the regular-season seven and eight seeds in the conference. Additionally, the game peaked with 5.49 million viewers at 9:30 p.m. EST on ESPN. Play-by-play announcer Mike Breen, analysts Doris Burke and JJ Redick and reporter Lisa Salters were on the call for the game, averaging 3.31 million viewers on the network. An alternate broadcast – NBA Unplugged with Kevin Hart – was broadcast on ESPN2 and co-produced by ESPN, Omaha Productions and Hartbeat and averaged 98,000 viewers.
The 76ers-Heat game attained the spot for the most-watched Eastern Conference Play-In Tournament game of all time and the sixth-largest audience among the 23 telecasts of matchups in the round, which was introduced in 2021. Jon Lewis of Sports Media Watch reported that it was also the most-watched Play-In Tournament game that did not include the Los Angeles Lakers or Golden State Warriors.
The second game of the night featured the No. 9 Chicago Bulls against the No. 10 Atlanta Hawks with Ryan Ruocco, Richard Jefferson and Cassidy Hubbarth on the call. The Bulls ended up winning the game by a final score of 131-116, which attained an average of 3.07 million viewers. This metric is up 31% from the matchup between the regular-season ninth and 10th seeds in the conference last year and is now the second-most watched Eastern Conference Play-In Tournament game ever.
As a whole, ESPN averaged 3.25 million viewers for its broadcasts of the Play-In Tournament across ESPN and ESPN2, which is up 25% from last year. NBA Countdown, which was hosted by Malika Andrews and included analysts Stephen A. Smith, Michael Wilbon and Bob Myers, averaged 591,000 leading into the doubleheader of games. This edition of the studio program was up 52% from the comparable broadcast last year that preceded NBA Play-In Tournament coverage on the network.
ESPN will resume its NBA broadcasts when the Miami Heat and Chicago Bulls battle to attain the final spot in the Eastern Conference playoffs. The winner of that matchup will face the Boston Celtics, starting on Sunday, April 21 at 1 p.m. EST on ABC. ESPN recently announced its Game 1 coverage of the NBA Playoffs, which includes a six-game slate across network platforms over the weekend. David Roberts, ESPN Head of Event & Studio Production, also discussed the coverage earlier this week with members of the media.
