Behind the Scenes of Sports Commentating

BY CHRIS ROBBINS

Watching sports is a natural thing we do so often and an aspect that gets overlooked is the people commentating on the games. Commentary is an essential part of sports that can be overshadowed by the athletes but, there is so much more that goes into commentary than people realize.

I call primarily football and basketball but, I’ve also begun moving into other sports such as volleyball, baseball, and soccer. My focus right now is football with the season in full swing and football requires the most research going into a game.

The week leading up to a home game, I find as many stats and information about the opposing team as I can. I go through their roster, and schedule so far this season, as well as the teams’ stats plus the individual player stats.

I take notes of stats and any important awards won by the players so far this season to get an idea of their best players and biggest strengths. Once I’m done with that, I talk with my commentary partner Andrew Nilsen to compare our findings and talk about the team.

Then we both watch as much recent game footage of the team we are playing to see how those stats translate to the field and talk about what we saw on the tape. Toward the end of the week with the game approaching, Andrew and I are lucky enough to have a meeting with our head coach Eli Gardner.

Meeting with Coach Gardner allows us to get a better understanding of what we have seen from our team but, a deeper dive and understanding of our opponent that week. We then take our conversation with the coach and apply that to all our research from that week and analyze all our thoughts to be ready for the game.

We get there early on gameday to set up the radio equipment and have a productive conversation about what we expect from the day's game. We collect our game notes and rosters from athletics, and we wait for the game to start.

I do play-by-play commentary so once the game begins, I talk for hours straight, analyzing every part of the game for the viewer. Calling a game is truly a rare experience and something that I am deeply passionate about.

Commentary is a unique and underappreciated skill that I am honored to do as often as I do.