Small Language Tweaks That Sharpen Your Play-by-Play
As a play-by-play broadcaster, your job is not just to describe a game, but to bring it to life. You have mere seconds to turn…
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A Viral Moment: Managing the Unexpected in Sportscasting
In the world of sports broadcasting, the unexpected can often become the most memorable. A play that defies expectations or a moment of pure emotion…
Keeping Listeners Engaged During Blowout Games
It’s the worst-case scenario for any play-by-play announcer: the game you’re calling turns into a total blowout. The score is lopsided, the excitement is gone,…
Sportscaster’s Guide to Quick and Effective In-Game Notes
As a sports broadcaster, you’re tasked with balancing multiple elements during live play—analyzing the action, tracking the stats, and keeping your commentary engaging. With so…
Calling Off a Monitor: Why Remote Broadcasting Is Here to Stay
Imagine calling a live basketball game from the comfort of your home or studio, miles away from the court. Sounds odd, right? Not anymore. Remote…
How to Tell Better Stories with Stats
Have you ever found yourself looking at a box score after a game and thinking, “Is that it?” Sure, the numbers are there—points scored, rebounds,…
How often should you say the time and score?
When everything else is equal…when voice and vocabulary and veracity are all comparable, the ability to seamlessly work in the time and score of a…
Nicknames and First Names; How to Use Them
Dale Carnegie once wrote, “A person’s name is to him or her the sweetest and most important sound in any language.” As sportscasters, we say names more than anything else throughout…
Broadcasting different sports: what can you learn?
It’s common wisdom for athletes to cross-train. Seldom to the world’s best focus strictly on one sport, twelve months a year…they branch out, they try…
The challenge of getting ‘in the zone’ on air
Get in the zone. It’s great advice for new sportscasters. Players know it, they know when they’re in the zone. For sportscasters, our location of…
Scripting: When It’s Okay To Read Prepared Text
We work in a business which relies on our skills to swifly describe what we see to those who aren’t in attendence, so it might…
Stay in the Moment: Not Getting Ahead of Your Call
In the past decade or so, the idea of instant replay and this notion of constantly checking and double checking plays has had a negative…
Communicating With Your Color Analyst
A little while ago, Alex talked about the differences between broadcasting a game solo versus having a go with a partner. Sometimes, the most difficult…
Producer and Play-by-play: When you’re on your own
“… with 12:25 left in the second period, the Fuel lead Kalamazoo 2-1. You’re listening to Indy Fuel hockey.” For years, the outcue is a signal…
My Pocket Notebook Makes Me a Better Sportscaster
Anyone who’s known me long enough knows that since high school, some 13 years ago, I’ve always had a small notebook tucked in my back…
Broadcast backups for when things go wrong
The single most important thing a broadcaster can do is prepare. You’ll see it all the time in spotting charts and research on teams and…
Talking with Coaches After Tough Incident
One of the most challenging aspects of sportscasting has to be dealing with coaches. If there is a bigger ‘chalk and cheese’ in sports media,…
Diary of a Sportscaster: The Last Seven Days
Regular readers on Sportscaster Life may have noticed a bit of a lull through the latter stages of January and into the start of February.…
The Best Shortcut to Finding A+ Demo Reel Material
Building a demo reel can be an extremely tedious task. You not only need to follow a lot of the rules associated with producing a…
Calling Games Solo vs With Colour Analyst
There is a huge difference between calling games on your own and having a colour analyst in the booth with you. Chances are throughout a…
Dealing with Bad Injuries On Air
In the light of Gordon Hayward’s ankle injury on national television to essentially open the NBA season, the topic of injuries is front and centre in…
Handling Training Camp as a Sportscaster
Late August and early September mean many hockey, football and basketball teams are holding their annual training camp. It’s an opportunity to shift back into…
Broadcasting Games off a Monitor
A couple of weeks ago I had a unique opportunity. From my home office in Powell River, British Columbia, Canada…in my pyjamas…I broadcast group stage…
Staying “On” During the Off-Season
If you’re a fall/winter sportscaster like me, you may be smack in the middle of a much-deserved off-season. If you’re a spring and summer sportscaster…
Thank You Coach (A Sportscasters Guide to Coaches)
Growing up we all played for at least one good coach. Good coaches not only helped us with our skills on the field or court…
Three Ways to Get Started in Sportscasting
You love watching sports. You love to talk. And a career where you get paid to go both of those things seems like it’s too…
How to Call a Pro Wrestling Broadcast
I love pro-wrestling. It’s a guilty pleasure that I truly enjoy for a multitude of reasons. First it’s entertaining. The production value, the presentation and…
What It’s REALLY Like to be a Sportscaster
People who want to be a sportscaster as a profession know how tough it is. On the surface, a career as a sportscaster is awesome. You…
The Star of the Broadcast is Always the Game
It was October of 1993. I was barely a month into my WHL broadcast career as the Voice of the Prince Albert Raiders and at…
My Big Break: Five Reasons Why You Didn’t Get It Yet
When will I get my big break? Sportscasting is a cut throat business. There are thousands of people interested and toiling away at the high…
How I Got My Start in Broadcasting
As I’ve mentioned here before, I’m a fan of Logan Anderson’s blog, Say the Damn Score. It’s a good look at his view on sportscasting…
How to Prep for Games When Info is Unavailable?
This post stems from a conversation I had with fellow hockey broadcaster Jonathan Kliment. Kliment reached out to Sportscaster Life to discuss prep techniques, namely…
Guest Post: My First Hockey Experience
Hi, I’m Logan Anderson, I’m a sportscaster from South Dakota. Alex has invited me to write about the challenges of doing play-by-play for an unfamiliar…
Trying to Broadcast a New Sport
In the summer of 2011, I had a great opportunity to try something new. Prince George, BC (where I was living at the time) was…
The Anatomy of a Goal Call
Not long ago, I got an email from a colleague in the BCHL asking about my goal calls. He was looking for ways to change…
Getting your reps in: Practice Without Games
The more years I’ve called games, the more I’ve come to believe that play-by-play broadcasting is like riding a bike. Once you learn it, get…
Editorial: Handling Bad Officiating
It’s happened to all of us. You’re calling a game, everything is going well, and then the referee/umpire becomes memorable for all the wrong reasons.…