Commentators can be found in almost every sport one can watch on TV these days; from football to basketball and from horse racing to motors-ports just to name a few. Sport’s commentating adds so much entertainment and information to the game being viewed that one cannot imagine a match without a commentator. In-vision a match without a commentator; you would be looking at the screen and after a while you would definitely get bored without someone telling you what's happening on a play by play basis. They help fill in the games in a game with a witty comment or provide interesting facts and statistics that people didn't know before. It is an art to commentate a sports match well and those that can do it are well remembered and loved by audiences all around the world.
Sometimes a professional sports-person once they have retired will grab a mic to try his luck at the talent or sometimes commentators are specially trained at broadcasting school to be up to the job. Both types of commentators have their pros and cons. The ex sports-person has insider knowledge and first-hand experience of the game that they are talking about. The problem occurs when their command of English isn't very strong or they don't have the best voice to compliment the part, but they try and make it up with such in depth knowledge of the game that it seems not that nig of a deal. The biggest advantage to a professional commentator trained in the art of broadcasting is that they have been trained specifically to do the job at hand. They also research the sport that they are talking about and have a strong knowledge of the game. The problem they face is that because they haven't played it professionally sometimes they can miss out on the small nuances that the ex athletes know. Nevertheless both types of commentators are very important and add a lot of vigour to whatever game is being watched. We find a lot of ex players commentating in cricket from Ian Botham, Nasir Hussain to Ramiz Raja and Michael Holding.
The strangest and liveliest commentators can be found in South American football. These energetic broadcasters patented the wonderful long goooooooooooal that they say every time anyone scores. It became synonymous with South American football and brought a lively and exciting element to the game. This brings us to a question who is the best commentator of all time? This is a very open question that would result in a lot of debate but we'll leave it to the Daily Mail newspaper to give us their list of top ten commentators. An article on the newspaper's website gives many names but they end up with these great commentators; Peter O'Sullevan from horse racing, Sid Waddell from darts, Brian Moore from football and many others but the top position is held by the great Richie Benaud from cricket. Now it is up to the readers to see if they agree with this list or they want to add their own to it.
The skills of commentating are something that people acquire over years of practice. Another article from the course material taught by a commentating school said this about how to do it right. "Successful use of language often depends upon the speaker being able to assume considerable background knowledge of his topic in his audience. Commentators express their judgements of the quality of the game or of an individual player". The emphasis here is on having very strong knowledge of the game the commentator is talking about. If they don't have strong background and technical knowledge the audience will figure out and the commentator instantly becomes boring and not relevant. By being up to date on the latest happenings and having a strong informational background to their sport a commentator can bring out the best in the game and entertain and excite the audience listening to him or her. An interview with Drew Morphett a famous Australian commentator gives us the following information about what it takes to be a good commentator; "A decent memory, good eyesight [and] a reasonable voice".
If anyone thinks it is easy to become a commentator they should really think again. These talented individuals practice for years and have a very strong in depth knowledge of the game that few people outside the field have. Just being able to remember and say 22 players’ names and saying their names when they receive the ball in a football game is a skill in itself. Commentators should be applauded for the excellent work they do to bring something new and exciting to the world of sports.
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