Do they have to do a tonne of research on each player before the game and how do they recognise players from lesser known nations?
In: 17
They dont, they make a lot of research before the event and have cheat sheets. Also, depending on the size of the production, they get help in the background.
It’s their career. Just like a lawyer knows all the laws or a historian most of history. I’m not a journalist but I know a lot of football, and I know most players, and the ones I don’t know, if it was my job I’d do research on them. When you’re passionate and consistent about something, you remember.
Not only do they have a ton of research ….
But they have an entire STAFF of people whose job it is to DO the research, summarize it, find the important parts, and print it out in an easy-to-read fashion.
Commentators aren’t idiots, they are very knowledgeable, but there’s tons of research behind the scenes, done by an army of people. And just like a nice powerpoint presentation, the research team has boiled down all that information into notes that are packed with information, but easy to read and comprehend.
The commentators have those notes in front of them.
I’m sure there are also experts who specialize in ONE TEAM only. An expert like that might feed information into the ear of the commentator.
They do a lot of research before the game, and they usually have some “cheat sheets” prepared for them they can look at during the event. It’s easier if you just do one sport, and eventually you start learning everyone naturally. It’s not that they just sit down and learn every team by heart all at once.
It’s similar to any profession really. How does a pharmacist memorize every medication and side effect? How does a DJ know every song? Etc. It’s a combination of experience, research, and a passion for the subject matter.
In the US, most professional level teams publish Media Guides to provide additional information about the franchise, as well as information on all of the players and coaches, to media outlets. It contains statistics on each player, a biography and other helpful information for the broadcasters. That’s a good reference but the broadcasters do have to memorize a lot of information as action (in most sports) occurs quickly. Additionally, player names on uniforms was not really a thing until the 1970’s. They would have to mentally match the number to the name of each player.
Add to that the broadcasters generally are fans of the sport they are broadcasting. They may spend their off hours watching out of town games so when the team they work for plays one of the others, they pick up a lot of information that way as well.