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
I used to sit up in the press box for University of South Alabama football games. Here’s how it worked there.
First for print media:
Every seat has a preprinted stats booklet—something like 30 pages of stats, trivia, etc. on each team. Last time each team returned a KO for a TD, last time the team returned 2 KOs for TDs, player with most interceptions in a game, player with most interceptions in a season, etc. etc. After each play, someone would announce over the speaker who the key players were (who carried the ball, who tackled, etc.). The reporters and scouts would write things down, and sometimes, if the announcer got it wrong, someone would yell out a correction.
Now we were right next to the TV, and there was just glass between us and them, so I could watch what they were doing. You just see 2 guys, but there are loads more guys in the booth with them. They will have player rosters in front of them, and spotters will point to players on the rosters who did something. For instance, the announcer might be saying “And Kennedy takes it down the sideline and pushed out of bounds by…” Before he even gets to “by” some guy is pointing to the defender on the roster, and the commentator only has to look at where he’s pointing. “…and pushed out of bounds by Foster.” I noticed a lot of the time the commentators didn’t look at the sheets that the spotters were pointing to, since they could tell based on position and their own prior research who was who without needing binoculars and the help of the spotter. The commentators really did appear to know their stuff. I am told they would spend the entire week prior reviewing game tape and getting to know all the players and formations and tendencies of each side.
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