Of note: Substack being used to produce this article for my Sportscasting Facebook page. Some readers may or may not find it interesting.
For beginning sports announcers, just getting your equipment and game materials ready is enough work. But those who get established with a school, a team, a conference—they are frequently looking to make their broadcast a step better than the competition.
That brings me to establishment of a broadcast crew. When done correctly, it can make your airwaves sound—shall I say it?—network-like.
One huge obstacle is press box space. There are many, many schools with press boxes that have just enough room for the public address announcer, the scoreboard operator, and a cup of coffee for each of them. If this is the situation you face as a broadcaster, my condolences. You are effectively trapped.
But in my local league—while some press boxes vary in size, they all have areas that allow our crew to huddle together in limited space with enough elbow room to do our jobs. What does that crew look like? Here is the lineup:
1) The announcer and analyst. This is the minimum crew size for football in particular—the lead announcer (which is me) keeps some individual stats, keeps track of scoring drives during the game and follows the ball on the field. The analyst focuses on plays made away from the ball—good blocks, effective pass rushes, fumble recoveries, defensive alignments, etc. They fill in the blanks between plays, allowing the lead announcer to get those stats written down.
2) The spotter. I wish I could explain how important this position is to me. Catching jersey numbers is always a challenge—I could tell you stories about lack of contrasting colors, low lighting, and the like. The spotter’s sole job is to (with the use of binoculars) track down the player making the tackle, or making the interception, or recording the sack. With rosters affixed to a clipboard, my spotter—my best friend of more than 50 years—dutifully helps me keep track of the players on the field. The NFL uses spotters routinely for good reason.
3) The stat man. The lead announcer can keep some rudimentary individual statistics and cobble together some team stats each half—but he/she should be following the game each play. The stat man—another longtime friend in my case—uses a simplified Microsoft Excel file to track stats of all manner, including punts, time outs, team statistics, etc. I do miss when he isn’t available for some games. Those statistics really add to the game broadcast.
4) Field microphone. Confession: this is a position that isn’t always used as well as it could be, especially if a game is very tight. The field mic guy provides updates about injured players, checks in on coaching decisions…. everything. This announcer has to wear a radio monitor and a two way radio while being told to stand by. It gets very confusing at times, and as my field announcers retired over the years, I did not replace them. It is a taxing job for the field announcer and the lead, and it a piece of the crew I have chosen to discontinue.
The crew, along with pre-planned (texted) score exchanges between other league games, add a level of sophistication to the entire broadcast. I heartily endorse this expansion if possible.
Note: some situations don’t allow for the broadcast crew to happen. The most glaring example of this came during the COVID-19 pandemic. Schools were asked to limit media in the press box, and so we were back to the two-person crew (me, Gary Horowitz). Our normal volunteers (Glenn, Curtis) were eventually allowed back as the rules were loosened, but it took a few more games to get the “flow” of information back to normal. It was just strange.
I am not fully naming my broadcast crew members in this article, but they realize how important they are to the quality of our broadcasts. Others have taken notice as well. Our own statewide prep activities organization has not blinked once in all the years we have had all these folks squeezed into the press box, and we unflinchingly receive media credentials each season. One warning—be sure to tell athletic directors at schools during the post season about the size of the staff. They are usually very accommodating—especially when they hear how many decades we have worked together. But it can be a shock if you all show up without proper notice.
For basketball, a two-person crew is the normal configuration we use at my radio station. But for football, bigger is better—provided the team members clearly know their individual roles.
By the way, my broadcast crew only receives a year-end meal for their efforts, if circumstances allow. Their value can not be measured, but I would hate to do football broadcasts without them by my side.
Go team.