Announcers can truly change a sporting event. Kirk Gibson’s home run could be a forgotten memory without Vin Scully’s call. Hearing Tony Romo predict what Tom Brady is thinking before a play greatly amplifies the experience.
Unfortunately, when you’re listening to one of your least favorite announcers it can significantly degrade your experience. I can’t stand the Cubs losing, but hearing smug Joe Buck tell me about how bad they’re doing makes me what to crawl into a hole and eat Hostess Cherry Pies.
The Pitch
Create a platform to allow fans to listen to the announcer that they want to listen to.
Live sporting events aren’t going anywhere. It’s one of the last things in this world that can truly surprise you. People want to watch and enjoy them, but they shouldn’t be forced to listen to whoever the one network that owns the video rights determines is the best.
This isn’t simply just for wanting to listen to someone different, it could also allow people to broadcast in their a different language. Or listen to a group of people and feeling like you’re sitting in a room with friends.
This can be used for aspiring or freelance announcers. It could also be used for experienced professional announcers to have their fanbase hear more from them and control their own income.
All sports would be available. Sports leagues would be able to get their product to more fans.
The Problem
Sporting event video rights are owned by networks and you cannot just re-stream the game video on your platform. But, if this is a purely audio medium, then someone else who is watching the broadcast talk into their own microphone should not be an issue. We could even support video of the announcer themselves if you really want.
Audio only would create a problem of keeping the audio and video in sync. This is probably the most interesting technical problem that exists. As a viewer, I would be fine being on an additional 5-15 second delay to ensure that my favorite announcer’s audio can sync up with my video. However, I wouldn’t want to have to do this manually and definitely not multiple times throughout the game.
Other issues, how do you get people to actually use the service? How do you get content creators on your site? How is this any better than someone just live streaming on Twitch or Youtube?
The Plea
Let’s make announcers great again. Don’t force them to travel to the games, give them more time to prepare and the best equipment available. Let people laugh, let people get educated, let people be entertained and let them choose their own announcer!
