Over the last few years, the USL has made some giant strides to help the growth of lower division soccer in the United States. The sharp rise in the number of teams in the USL Championship, the second tier of the US soccer pyramid, is proof that the sport is growing, and that more and more potential owners are seeing the opportunity to own a professional sports club. The additions of League 1 and League 2 have provided even more ownership opportunities with less strict requirements, allowing smaller markets the opportunity to have a local soccer team. When the USL partnered with ESPN, allowing every game to be seen nationwide on the network’s new streaming service, it was seen as a step forward. The league and ESPN recently announced a multi-year extension of that partnership, which many fans saw as a victory. But there is a problem that needs to be addressed if the league is to continue their forward progress and growth. There needs to be growth in the quality of the announcing crews for matches.
Over the past week, Orange County SC played two matches on the road against Real Monarchs and Sacramento Republic FC. With many local fans unable to make the trip to Salt Lake City or Sacramento, their remaining option was to watch the match streams on ESPN+. While typically not a big issue, these two most recent matches show a lack of quality control in broadcasts. With many mispronounced names, graphical errors, and biased broadcasting, Orange County fans were cringing on Wednesday and Saturday instead of enjoying watching the beautiful game.
I understand that many teams have their own local broadcast, with their own announcers, and that the USL, instead of creating a competing broadcast for the national audience, share that feed on the ESPN+ stream. I actually have not problem with this in the bigger scheme of things. If an announcer does their homework and prepares for a match by confirming the player names, pronunciations, and recent headlines, everything should work, and fans watching the match should not even think twice about the people describing the action. On top of that, if the announcers can check their emotions at the door, they will not alienate 50 percent (or more) of their viewers. Don’t get me wrong, a little emotion is okay, but it needs to be controlled, and not force many viewers to make a decision of whether or not to mute the audio.
This past Wednesday, Orange County traveled to Salt Lake City to face a tough Real Monarchs team. With huge playoff implications, I’m sure many fans outside of Orange County and Salt Lake City were following the match. During the match, the local SLC broadcasting crew messed up not one, but two names the entire match. Both Frederik Due and Joe Amico had their names mispronounced the entire match
It the match this past Saturday against Sacramento, not only was there some mispronunciation of names, but there was a wrong last name in the starting line-ups, and a lot of complaining about the officiating during the match, especially when it went against the home team.
Orange County SC’s starting 11 showing Jerry “VAN EWIJK” instead of “VAN WOLFGANG”.
First, let’s discuss the wrong last name. We are now one match away from the end of the regular season, and something Orange County fans have seen throughout the season continues to be an issue. When the broadcast showed the starting 11 for OC, it showed a midfielder by the name of Jerry van Ewijk instead of Jerry van Wolfgang, which has been his name since the beginning of the 2018 season. Do you remember the Orange County vs. New Mexico United match? The broadcaster for that match shared the story of the name change for about 15 minutes. Were you not paying attention? Apparently not, if the name is still not correct 33 matches into a 34 match season.
Next, let’s mention the mispronunciation of a name. Throughout the entire match, the announcers changed Vinicius’s name to “Vinushis”. Where did they even see a “U” or anything combination of letters that would make that sound? It’s not exactly an uncommon name in soccer, with a Real Madrid winger also sharing his name. It was almost like they didn’t care if they got the name right, which is again a huge issue for the credibility of the league.
Lastly, and by far the biggest issue of the night, was the constant complaining by the announcers. I understand that the officiating was not the best, but there was way too much emotion being shown by the announcers for the final third of the match. Viewers continuously heard the announcers complaining about calls that didn’t go Sacramento’s way. When an opportunity was denied by an offside call, the announcers let the viewers know about it, laughing and saying “no way, no way, no way” and that it was laughable. They reminded viewers about this bad call more than five minutes later.
In the 77th minute, when Sacramento was again denied a goal thanks to a handball call, and shorty after, Orange County scored on a similar play in the 78th minute, the floodgates opened. They debated both plays the remainder of the match, complaining that Sacramento’s waived goal was a bad call, stating the official “needs to go back to school” following the goal that was allowed for Orange County. They continued, stating that “this (was) the worst officiating they have seen in the USL Championship this season.”
The announcing crew was truly frustrated by the calls, but they are professionals on a national stream. They need to be reminded of this, as it was a very frustrating final 15-20 minutes to watch for most fans. It was not the best job by a referee this season, but emotions needed to be checked. I understand complaining if you are a fan on Twitter, a supporter’s group, or even a fan blog, but not the “professionals” announcing the match. It is unacceptable.
If the league is hoping to take the next steps in growth, they need to find a way to improve their product on ESPN. Week in and week out, there are mistakes that would just not be acceptable in the NBA, NFL, MLB, NHL, or even MLS. I get it: it’s easy to mess up the pronunciation of a name. I’ve done it on our podcast, but I don’t get paid to say the names and I fix it. I complain when I feel the refs do a bad job, but we are a fan blog and podcast, not a professional broadcast team. These things (along with the many other mistakes on the broadcasts) need to be addressed in the off-season for the league to be taken more seriously.