But they all put Dave O’Brien to shame. He doesn’t use proper English–he repeatedly used “defense” as a verb during the Poland game, instead of “defend”–as in, “well defensed by the US!”. How about “poor use of English by O’Brien there–that’ll be a yellow!”

In fact, I would submit that being the longsuffering “core” fan who simply puts up with crap announcing will do more harm than good. I guess I’m just a little surprised that the premier sports channel in the U.S. can take such a half-assed approach to a sport like soccer. I’d like to be patient and say, “Eventually they’ll get it right”, but the improvements have been marginal over the past several years. If you’re going to do it, do it right for crying out loud.

Despite the shortcomings, I’m not going to turn down the sound. Now, I speak Spanish fluently, but for national team games broadcast on both ESPN and Telemundo, I’ll take ESPN unless the air times differ. However, it’s definitely not because of the announcer quality. I have three reasons: 1) I just more enjoy listening in my native language, 2) I want to support the network so that coverage and quality will continue (hopefully) to improve, and 3) morbid curiosity.

Now I don’t agree with this approach. I think soccer will remain a niche TV sport in this country until the US Men can consistently compete at or near the very top, and no amount of heartwarming anecdotes are gonna make a ratings difference until then. So until we reach that level, marketing suits and network execs will continue to pry extra revenue by forsakeing “real fans.” I don’t watch many MLS matches because I don’t have a home market to root for since the Fusion folded and I think the general coverage stinks. I’d rather watch higher quality matches on other networks.

I’m of the opinion that ESPN doesn’t care a wink what we think about their announcers. So are there enough core fans that’ll watch the WC on Univision instead?

The catch-22 is that if the core fans defect from ESPN the likely scenario is that they’ll drop the coverage entirely next time around instead of improving things for the ones who consistently tune in.

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

Lets hope we don’t have to endure a summer of Glen Davis or Dave O’Brien. My ears will start bleeding.

However, I know the differences quite well, as I am Irish/Welsh and my wife is English

Seriously though, as the debate about the nationality of England’s next manager shows, the entity, British, is a dubious distinction. Martin O’Neill is “British” enough to be the England manager…but what about Sir Alex?

For play-by-play guys I think Derek Rae is decent (he’s Scottish). JP Della’Camera, Bob Ley and Phil Schoen are all decent enough and more importantly they are soccer fans. So I would like to see those three as the main play-by-play guys. Mike Hill was the best of the bunch doing Champion’s League stuff about 10 years ago–but I think he’s retired.

For color commentators I haven’t heard any decent Americans since Seamus Malin. Ty Keough was a laughing stock. The new crop of Balboa, et al are just awful. But I do love Ray Hudson for the flair and personality, but his accent is too heavy for the xenophobic network executives (they think ordinary Americans will tune out when they hear a foreigner.)

I’d rather see ESPN contract some English announcers just for the World Cup. Don’t you think it would be easier for a seasoned Brit like Martin Tyler to brush up on the American team in enough time to do a better job than Dave O’Brien, who has to learn the actual game first? That way we’d get a soccer-knowledgable guy. ESPN could use studio time for all the “human interest” pieces and keep the personal anecdotes out of the actual game broadcast.

Stick Wynalda and Balboa in the studio for halftime, etc and let them banter away about their WC experiences past. And for the love of god leave Giorgio Chinaglia at home.

SUMMARY: I’d rather see someone like Martin Tyler with Seamus Malin, but I could live with JP, Phil, or Derek Rae with Ray Hudson

With so much left to be desired from the state of soccer in this country, it’s hard for me to have a strong opinion about announcers.

The job of an announcer is pretty much to state the obvious. I leave the sound on primarily for the fan noise.

the british announcers, if you watch EPL, if they miss even the slightest of a chance, even if its not even really a shot, they get “that was an awful play” etc… us, we miss an open shot on the 6 and its eww unlucky… not at all

further, i’d like the announcers to, as i said, really promote our team… thats how it is in other countries, especially Europe and latin/south america…

anyway, i will still REALLY enjoy watching the games A LOT!!!