Sports commentator There are however exceptions to this — most of the United Kingdom's leading cricket and snooker commentators are former professionals in their sports, while the former Formula One racing commentator Murray Walker had no formal journalistic training and only limited racing experience of his own. In the United States, George "Pat" Summerall, a former professional kicker, spent most of his broadcasting career as a play-by-play announcer. Although the combination of a play-by-play announcer and a color commentator is standard , in the past it was much more common for a broadcast to have no analysts and just have a single
Sports commentator "play-by-play" announcer or commentator in North America, "blow-by-blow" in combat sports coverage or "lap-by-lap" for motorsports coverage, is the primary speaker on the broadcast. Broadcasters in this role are valued for their articulateness and for their ability to describe each play or event of an often fast-moving sporting event. The ideal play-by-play voice has a vocal timbre that is tolerable to hear over the multiple hours of a sports broadcast and yet dynamic enough to convey and enhance the importance of the in-game activity. Because of their skills, some commentators like Al Michaels in the U.S., David Coleman in the