What Are the Duties of a Sportscaster?

In the early 1990s, with the upswing in popularity of the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network (ESPN), sportscasting became something cool and desirable for young men and women interested in sports journalism. Though ESPN provides a recognized platform for sportscasters, local and regional news stations also offer employment opportunities. If you're interested in this career, you should know the duties of a sportscaster include announcing sports news, providing play-by-play and color commentary during sporting events, interviewing sports personalities and filing investigative reports.

Announcing

One of the main duties of a sportscaster is to announce the sports news of the day. On local broadcast television, this is usually done in a studio by one person and is a portion of a news telecast. National networks such as ESPN and FOX Sports often use two anchors to announce sports news. Because the volume of news demands rapid delivery, many announcers make use of a teleprompter, an off-camera visual display device that provides text which can be read quickly.

Commentary

As a sportscaster, you might also be called upon to provide commentary duties for live-action sporting events such as football, basketball and baseball games. A play-by-plan announcer's task is to describe every detail of a game as it develops. Play-by-play announcers are the main commentators during a sporting event, but are often accompanied by a color commentator who provides background, statistics and an insider's perspective to the game. Color commentators also give insight into players through pre-game interviews that sometimes yield humorous anecdotes. Because they must have expertise in the game for which they're providing commentary, color commentators are often ex-athletes who have become sportscasters.

Reporting

Sportscasters are often required to go into the field and file stories or cover breaking news. Some sportscasters are assigned to cover big sports personalities such as Tiger Woods or Brett Favre, and follow these newsmakers wherever they go. Sportscasters are given specific seasonal tasks that require them to spend weeks in the field. Specialized tasks include covering baseball spring training at various team locations, covering professional football pre-season training camps and reporting from tennis Grand Slam events such as Wimbledon (England) and the U.S. Open (New York).

Investigative Journalism

Investigative journalism is a duty of sportscasters that requires them to develop contacts, obtain evidence and put in long hours as they attempt to report on controversial stories in the sports world such as steroid use, gambling, athlete infidelity and cheating in college athletics. With increased competition from online sites such as Yahoo Sports, TV and radio sportscasters engaged in investigative journalism must be accurate in their reporting while trying to scoop other outlets. ESPN's "Outside the Lines," is an investigative series that tackles contemporary sports issues including the role of transgender athletes, the future of the Bowl Championship Series in college football and the rise in concussion injuries and their potential long-term effects.

References

• Women's Sports Foundation; Sportscaster; Stephanie Iovieno; 2008
• U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: Announcers
• Maxizip: Television Sportscaster Job Description, Education and Training Requirements
• Poynter.org; How Yahoo Sports Has Competed Online....; Bill Krueger; December 2010
• ESPN: Outside the Lines Stories

Resources

• The Museum of Broadcast Communications: Sportscasters