Sportscasters/Sportscasting

Principles and Practices

Linda Fuller

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2008
• Print ISBN: 9780789018250
• eBook ISBN: 9781135696795
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Performing Arts

A comprehensive introduction to the workings of the business, Sportscasters/Sportscasting: Principles and Practices explains all of the information essential to anyone looking to begin a career in sports media. This unique volume explores topics in print and broadcast media, sports psychology, technology issues, politics and legalities, ethics, and even the role of sports and sportscasting in society. Other topics discussed include the historical development and economics of sports and sportscasting, sports spectators, sports controversies, sociological perspectives, and sports journalism.

Sportscasters/Sportscasting: Principles and Practices is filled with knowledge essential to the craft of sportscasting, including numerous appendices containing acronyms and biographic information about over 200 sportscasters, and a complete Instructor's Manual with exercises to help guide students toward mastery of the topic. Please visit http://LKFullerSport.com for more information and to download the Instructor's Manual.

Chapter 1
Introduction to Sport, Sportscasters, and Sportscasting

The importance of sports to contemporary American culture is manifest. It can be measured by the many hours that fans spend riveted to television screens, by the column inches in newspapers devoted to sports, to their presence in sports bars, and by the samples of cocktail conversations. Novelists, poets, and dramatists increasingly turn to sports for motifs, and scholars are beginning to execute minute investigations of the psychological, philosophical, and social significance of sports. As in the past, twenty-first century sports mirror, sometimes reinforce, and sometimes challenge fundamental social divisions. Simultaneously sports have joined the electronic media, bureaucratic structures, and mass consumption as one of the new sinews holding together modern society.

(Rader, 2004, p. 363)

This book has been a long time in the making. It dates to my search for textbooks to teach sportscasting—only to find that there were none available. So, although it seemed only natural to write one myself, the path to that end certainly has been circuitous; along the way, it made me realize that there is a wide audience for this topic. Although demographically geared to students—of both genders and any ethnicity, who are considering careers in the sportscasting field, it has evolved into a critical reference tool, with stories sprinkled throughout by and about sportscasters and their sports industry counterparts.

ORGANIZATION

Format-wise, Sportscasters/Sportscasting: Principles and Practices includes an overview of the lucrative sports industry, defining and describing how its role in broadcasting operates. The history of sportscasting is outlined, along with discussions of its economic base (advertisers and advertising, sports tourism, sports marketing and management, the sports-media complex, sportscaster earnings, and sports sponsorship), audience(s)—U.S. and international sports spectators and audiences for special events, and the role of sportscasting relative to the media: print sports media (sportswriters/sportswriting, sports journalism/sports journalists), sports television, including case studies, sports broadcasting controversies, and topics beyond broadcasting. Subsumed under the chapter on media is a special section on sportscasters: sportscaster recognition, the “jockocracy” issue, sportscaster celebrityhood, sportscaster signature statements, sportscasters as newscasters, sportscasters in the media, and in-depth profiles of more than 200 sportscasters. Sociological perspectives on sports and sportscasting consider discussions on the pervasiveness and salience of sports (the sociology of sport, the language of sport, sport and religion, and sport in popular culture), role modeling/ heroes (sport and identity, sport celebrityhood, and sport mentors), and some sociocultural issues relative to sportscasting (gender, gender orientation, race, drugs/doping, gambling, and sports violence). A practicum on sportscasting rounds out the book, including sections on becoming a sportscaster (sportscasting skills, sportscasting jobs, sportscasting preparation, sportscasting how-tos, and internships), sports journalism writing and broadcasting (the latter including sections on career moves, interviews, specific sports, and sports psychology). Finally, the future of sportscasting takes on technology and topics such as sports stadiums, politics and legalities, ethics, and your role in sports and sportscasting. As you can see, this is a multifaceted, user-friendly volume.

Positioned to be more applied than theoretical, although clearly situated in critical studies since it concerns itself with political economy, narratives, reception studies, and ideologies, this book opens a new area of study by going beyond concentrations of news and entertainment programming to include sports broadcasting (Morse, 1983). Although sports journalism in general draws upon the philosophies of Aristotle, Kant, Mills, and Rawls, ethics here becomes a subject onto itself, and overall it calls on work by Giulianott, 2004; Graham, 1994; and Morgan, 1994. John Vincent (2005, p. 2) suggests several theoretical approaches for explaining mediated coverage of sport: “Feminist sport scholars claim that female athletes are marginalized and exploited … Cultural studies scholars view the media as playing an important role in the construction and reconstruction of hegemonic ideologies such as capitalism, patriarchy, and heterosexuality, by creating and naturalizing social reality … Political economy scholars claim newspapers are driven by the financial considerations of circulation and advertising revenue.” What makes this study of sportscasting so exciting is how multidisciplinarian, multitheoretical, and multiapplicable it is.

What you should particularly enjoy here are profiles of a number of sportscasters, along with their perspectives on the profession. Sprinkled throughout are some of their stories, along with incredible insights into the industry. Because we all have our own preferences, you will learn how some sports spectators like individual sportscasters, while others like teams (Curt Smith, p. 84 cites Ken Coleman and Warren Lahr, Curt Gowdy and Paul Christman, Dick Enberg and Merlin Olsen in his 1998 book), and yet you may prefer sportscaster foursomes.

Beyond that, you will undoubtedly be interested in the many appendixes at the end, including the following:

• Acronyms
• Autobiographies, biographies, and books about sportscasters
• Glossary
• Sportscaster profiles
• Sportscasting-related journals, periodicals, magazines, newspapers, and e-zines
• Sportscasting-related resources for racial minorities
• Sportscasting-related resources for women
• Sportscasting-related schools, libraries, museums, and archives
• Sportscasting-related Web sites
• Sports halls of fame
• Sports networks
• Sports and sportscasting-related organizations
• Worldwide sports

EXERCISES IN SPORTSCASTING

Exercises in Sportscasting, a supplement to this book, contains exercises to enhance learning not only about the business but also about your own relationship to it. For example, this introductory chapter’s exercise concerns your own definition/description of sportscasting; for history, you are encouraged to talk to older people about their memories of early sports reportage. For financial issues, you might consider the $500+ billion sports tourism business, along with product placement in sports venues and retail areas. As a sports audience member, it behooves you to analyze some of your fondest memories, as well as to critique various players, teams, and/or events in terms of your role as a spectator. Relative to radio, you can count how many are in your household—a really fun exercise that you can ask others to do, too. Sociology and sport exercises encompass a range of subjects, such as culture and social relations, gender, race, homosexuality, and the like, while Chapter 7 encourages you to dive right in. Last, exercises for the chapter on future concerns and considerations of sportscasting stretch your imagination.

Several exercises suggest further reading on certain subjects, such as globalization of sport, the economics of sport, sport audiences, media and sport, sport sociology, laws and legalities relative to sport, and dealing with issues such as drugs and doping, gambling, and technology. Encouraging you to be a media critic, these book reviews encourage you to consider the author’s credentials, main point(s), proofs, contribution to the field, and your own personal evaluations.

Sport, as you continue to learn, is a “Big Business”—a multibillion dollar business. Globally, according to the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association (http://www.sgma.com), this translates into more than $350 billion, not counting another $170 billion for sporting goods. Between athletes’ salaries, corporate sponsorship, media coverage, and related fields of advertising and public relations, the sports marketing industry has actually become a business unto itself.

As the electronic media become evermore our preferred source of sports information—so much so, in fact, that radios and televisions are becoming continually more noticeable at actual sporting events, the practice of sportscasting needs to be factored in. While a number of books have been written about specific sportscasters, even more by specific sportscasters, to date nothing has been written combining the craft of sportscasting with a wider socio-political-economic perspective. My main purpose is for you to get a sense of sportscasting.

Perhaps the eminent writer James A. Michener (1907-1997), author of a number of best-selling epic novels, as well as the controversial expose Sports in America (1976), says it best. Revealing how, as he was listening to a football game on the car radio between two teams whose names and players he didn’t know, he got sucked in:

The announcer was breathless in his excitement over the performance of his heroes. Then the game ended and he revealed the score. His miracle players had lost, something like 42-0, and I realized for the first time that the announcer’s job was to create suspense, sustain tension, and give the listener the feeling that he had participated in a game which had been decided only in the final seconds. (pp. 383-384)

In traditional broadcasting, such as radio and television, sportscasters write, read, and simultaneously analyze, critique, report, and dramatize sporting events. Whether they are covering amateur or professional sports, whether they are covering them live or after an event, they bring their own perspectives and personal baggage to the job. Mainly, they adjust to being part of a team, bringing their own perspectives to the broadcast booth. Dick Stockton (cited in Smith, 1998, p. 91) provides a particularly intriguing worldview to the topic:

It’s amazing the variety of people you team with over the years. I have worked with quarterbacks Roger Staubach, Len Dawson, John Unitas, Terry Bradshaw and Dan Fouts, all Hall of Famers, and linemen such as Dan Dierdorf and Randy Cross. I have worked with linebackers such as Wayne Walker and Matt Millen. Coaches? Hank Stram and John Madden, who worked with a lot of announcers in his first years with CBS. The interesting thing is the different approaches these analysts took. Coaches looking at the big picture. Quarterbacks looking at receivers and the passing lanes. Defensive people looking at the line of scrimmage to see how to stop the running game. Offensive linemen looking at pass protection. Old habits die hard. I’m glad they do.

Although we might mostly think of a sportscaster as working at radio and/or television stations, giving commentary and play-by-play at sporting events, and sports news anchors reporting sports-related news, we need to step back and realize that he or she is a link between us, the fans, and our favorite players and teams. Together, we form a bond, making us feel as if we are right there at an event. Relative to baseball, Roberta E. Pearson (1988, p. 11) puts it this way: “Rather than simply asking ‘Who will win this particular game?’ the announcers dramatize the conflict, placing the game within the narrative structure of the season as a whole.” She continues:

The announcers, among their other functions, serve as keepers of the flame, relating a particular game not only to the current and recent seasons, but to baseball’s legendary past. They compare active to past players, tell anecdotes about the game’s great and famous and reminisce about their own careers. They also contrast the contemporary game to its previous incarnations, commenting on alterations in rules and playing conditions and not invariably valorizing the present. This invocation of baseball’s pervasive nostalgia perhaps serves to reinforce the game’s residual values. (p. 12)

Think of it this way: Play-by-play persons call the action, while “color commentators” might host a pregame show or intermission, or fill in gaps between breaks in the play; sometimes, of course, the jobs are one and the same.

The basic idea is announcing action, in “real time.” Sportscasting, by the way, is mainly an American English term, not necessarily used as a blanket phrase around the world—which brings me to a disclosure of perspective. At the risk of being accused of Western ethnocentrism, it must be admitted that most of this book is U.S.-oriented, even if many of its themes can hopefully be transferred to other countries and cultures. As we well know, globalization in sport continues to be an area of interest to many scholars and practitioners (Allison, 2006; Amis, 2005; Andrews, 2006; Bairner, 2001; Chandler, 1988; Cronin and Mayall, 1998; Eitzen, 2004; Foer, 2004; Gems, 2006; Houlihan, 1994; Maguire, 1999; Majumdar and Hong, 2006; Miller, Lawrence, McKay, and Rowe, 2001; Roche, 2001; Szymanski and Zimbalist, 2005; Tomlinson and Young, 2006; Van Bottenburg and Jackson, 2001; Wenner, 1998; Westerbeek and Smith, 2003; Whannel, 1992; Wilson, 1994).

Sometimes, admittedly, it does not go as well as it should. “The art of sports broadcasting, from a play-by-play and commentary standpoint, has devolved to Neanderthal level, a rollicking circus of forced enthusiasm and excess,” Brian Lowry (2006, p. 1) levels in his criticism. He offers as an example ABC’s “planned 3 ½ hour Super Bowl pre-game show featuring its ESPN crew, meaning the amount of babble about the game will run as long as the game itself.”

Much of sport, as you know, crosses borders. Much as Hockey Night in Canada might be a national phenomenon, many American audiences also participate in it, just as people around the world catch our Super Bowl. But this all should make us feel funny about calling our annual baseball final the World Series.

Lots of sportscasting involves humor. Read these examples, from sportscasters who might not necessarily have tried to be funny:

• Dizzy Dean: “Fans, don’t fail to miss tomorrow’s game.”
• Giant’s broadcast announcer Ron Fairley: “He fakes a bluff.”
• Padres broadcast announcer Jerry Coleman, attempting to tell radio listeners about a fly ball hit by a member of the opposing team: “Winfield goes back to the wall. He hits his head on the wall and it rolls off! It’s rolling all the way back to second base! This is a terrible thing for the Padres.”
• Jerry Coleman again: And Kansas City is at Chicago tonight, or is that Chicago at Kansas City? Well, no matter, Kansas City leads in the eighth, 4 to 4.”
• Ralph Kiner, announcer for the New York Mets: “We are experiencing audio technicalities.” Also, “Today is Father’s Day, so everyone out there: Happy birthday!”
• Curt Gowdy: “Folks, this is perfect weather for today’s game. Not a breath of air.”
• Unnamed golf broadcaster, during a tournament: “Arnie [Palmer], usually a great putter, seems to be having trouble with his long putt. However he has no trouble dropping his shorts.”

At this point, then, you realize that you are about to engage in a book that has wide-ranging perspectives, ranging from a historical review to predictions about the future. It is meant to involve you, the reader, and it is meant to evolve, so your participation is highly encouraged.

The Website, eHow, offers several steps on becoming a sportscaster. These steps include attending a school of journalism and taking courses in writing and sports history, and reading about sports.

If only you could just follow some magic steps to become a sportscaster. As you will find, it is wondrously more complicated than that.

“Sport is not socially, politically, economically, culturally, or historically neutral,” Martin Polley (2007, p. xiv). “Sport is always linked to the wider settings in which it is played, and to think that it can float free of them—as in, for example, the claim that ‘sport and politics should not mix’—is an obstacle to your understanding of sport.”

Chapter 2
The Historical Development of Sports and Sportscasting

As might be expected, the evolution of sportscasting began quite soon after the earliest broadcasting media came into being, rooted first in sportswriting, then radio dating from the 1920s, television at mid-twentieth century, and moving into new technologies such as Websites, blogs, and podcasts (Fuller, forthcoming). The chronology includes a number of “firsts,” such as the fact that the first professional team in the United States was the Cincinnati Red Stockings, established in 1869.

Radio telegraphy was used as early as 1920 to report some baseball, football, and prizefighting scores, such as WWJ’s first broadcast of a prizefight (Jack Dempsey versus Billy Miske, September 6, 1920), or WTAW’s first radio play-by-play broadcast of a collegiate football game (Texas University versus Mechanical College of Texas on November 25, 1920), but it was all pretty primitive. Curt Gowdy (cited in Poindexter, 1966, p. 135) has a classic recollection:

Football is a complicated game, but there wasn’t anything ve...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Preface and Acknowledgements
• Chapter 1. Introduction to Sport, Sportscasters, and Sportscasting
• Chapter 2. The Historical Development of Sports and Sportscasting
• Chapter 3. The Economics of Sports, Sportscasters, and Sportscasting
• Chapter 4. Audiences for Sports and Sportscasting
• Chapter 5. The Role of Media in Sports and Sportscasting
• Chapter 6. Sociocultural Perspectives on Sports and Sportscasting
• Chapter 7. Practicum on Sportscasting
• Chapter 8. Future Concerns and Considerations about Sports and Sportscasting
• Appendix 1. Acronyms
• Appendix 2. Autobiographies, Biographies, and Books about Sports Journalists
• Appendix 3. Sportscasters: A Partial Listing
• Appendix 4. Sportscasting-related Journals, Periodicals, Magazines, Newspapers, and E-zines
• Appendix 5. Sportscasting-related Resources for Racial Minorities
• Appendix 6. Sportscasting-related Resources for Women
• Appendix 7. Sportscasting-related Schools, Libraries, Museums, and Archives
• Appendix 8. Sportscasting-related Web Sites
• Appendix 9. Sports Halls of Fame
• Appendix 10. Sports Networks
• Appendix 11. Sports and Sportscasting-related Organizations
• Appendix 12. Worldwide Sports
• Glossary
• References
• About the Author