Being an avid sports enthusiast who doesn't have much in the way of wealth I find myself exposed to a large amount of televised sport, and as a result I have come to appreciate much about sports broadcasting, in particular the importance of a good commentator is in helping to amplify a viewer's enjoyment of sport as a television experience. Think of any memorable sporting moment of the broadcast era and you'll find that nearly all of them have been accompanied by a wonderful piece of commentary which has helped to make the moment in question even more iconic, be it Kenneth Wolsenholme's cry of 'they think it's all over' as Geoff Hurst approaches the German 18 yard box during the 1966 World Cup final or more recently with Martin Tyler's elongated call of Sergio Aguero as places the ball onto his right foot before powerfully striking to give Manchester City their long awaited league title in the last minute of the 2011/2012 Premier League season.
For all their positives however I do have one major grievance when it comes to sports commentary; the thing in question being bias and prejudice towards particular competitors within a sport. Whilst I understand that this sort of thing is in a way to be expected when it comes to sports commentary, especially when it comes to a sport which has national connotations such as international football, I often feel that far too often then not these national interests end up taking predominance over the professionalism of the commentators to call the sport in as professional and as entertaining a manner as possible. The biggest example of this in recent years was with James Allen's commentary as lead commentator during the 2007 and 2008 Formula 1 seasons for ITV, two years which saw rookie Lewis Hamilton launch himself onto the Formula 1 scene with unprecedented success for a rookie driver in the sport. Being a British broadcaster covering the sucess of a Briton it was obvious for ITV and for James Allen to take this particular party line, but in my view took their coverage to unprecedented levels of fawning over Hamilton which came across as both distracting but also amazingly unprofessional, and in the process distorted a true perception of what were two classic seasons for Formula 1. At that point during his career Lewis Hamilton was in no way near a finished article as a driver or as a media conscious personality, and in those early seasons I found him to be brash, extremely and unjustly cocky as well as accident prone and at times reckless, traits which were overlooked and glossed over by an ITV obsessed with promoting their great British hero. It was in many ways rather sad to see from a broadcasting point of view,especially in regards to lead commentator James Allen who as the face of ITV's coverage, and therefore as the face of what those on the internet dubbed 'Lewhysteria', received a large amount of grief as a broadcaster, grief which in some ways saw him black-balled as a commentator and has only just began to regain his reputation and credibility as a broadcaster. Mr Allen is a very intelligent and a very passionate man when it comes to Formula 1, but he is also evidence of the importance of impartiality in sport broadcasting.
For a colour commentator impartiality is arguably much more difficult, with most colour commentators being ex-professionals the premise of having ulterior motives influencing opinion is much more commonplace, but a true, professional commentator can be able to push aside any of these influences and help in calling a sporting event in as high a professionalism as possible, Andy Gray for example had spells with Aston Villa, Wolves and Everton to name but a few, and yet very little of this can be seen when listening back to any of his broadcasts, and it shows in the high quality of the broadcast as a result. Since Mr Gray was sacked however by Sky Broadcasting there has been an increase however in colour commentators who make little to no effort in attempting to replicate this professionalism, instead choosing to nail colours to their respective masts all with the approval of Sky Sports. An incident in particular which alarmed me about this (and one which helped to instigate the publishing of this blog) came with the decision to appoint Niall Quinn to commentate on last seasons Tyne Wear Derby match. Whilst I have issues with the way that Niall Quinn conducted himself during that match I felt that much more of the blame should fall with Sky for their decision to make this arrangement in the first place. As a playing legend for the club as well as serving as chairman for a number of years Quinn's associations with Sunderland were apparent even before the broadcast took place, and in my view the decision to give him this role to cover a Sunderland game, let alone one as important as the Tyne Wear derby, was certainly a wrong one from Sky, and in the process spoiled the broadcasting of the sport as a television viewer. The Quinn incident however is not the first of these kinds of decisions however, as Sky have taken to doing this with much more of their broadcasting choices, Quinn himself was used as a colour commentator to cover the final televised games of Manchester City's title winning season (City of course being another of Quinn's closest clubs), Gary Neville being used during a number of Manchester United games during the 2011/ 2012 season as well as Soccer Saturday panelists Phil Thompson, Charlie Nicholas and Matt Le Tissier all being allowed to cover the games of Liverpool, Arsenal and Southampton respectively, all of which doing so with little regard for impartiality and subtlety in their agendas.
Whilst I understand that passion in sport is something that makes the sport more enjoyable it should not come at the expense of impartiality and professionalism, and unfortunately in recent years this has become the case, are we now at a stage in sports broadcasting where with so many forums for opinions and agendas geared towards a very particular viewer viewpoint that we no longer need the same level of professionalism seen from an old-school style of commentator? Maybe it is a decrease in standards of sports commentary in general or maybe it is just me remaining in an idyllic perception of sport which simply down to emotion simply cannot be adhered to.
I'll let you be the judge of that.
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