1) The Sky Conference
a. Not switching at exciting moments
b. Do not show unimportant goals
c. Switch to the exciting plays and scores
d. Draw the spectator into the action
e. After a goal and switching to the match: please urgently show the replay in original speed, not the slow-motion immediately
2) General about the reporters
a. Do not permanently anticipate “it’s not going to work anyway”.
b. Create suspense, don’t kill it
c. No intermediate conclusions or even permanent conclusions
d. Comment on attack moves with anticipation
e. There IS a difference between performance and result. Hopefully not always and in every game, but it happens often enough. Recognising this is an art, but would please the spectator
f. In interviews one gets the impression that the questioner already knows the “right” answer. The interviewee can “guess” it or be off the mark. The only reason for knowing the right answer: he knows the result.
g. Compassion is by no means a sign of weakness. “I’m sorry for her” is often appropriate. Be sure: the audience feels it that way and if not, they will take notice. Not always just “they brought it on themselves, this defeat”.
h. Goals are always “avoidable” according to the commentary and the chain of errors is usually extended arbitrarily far, to every single player, to all parts of the team, in all characteristics. But this chain would immediately vanish into thin air if the goal had not landed in the net. In that case, the attacking party would receive the same broadside, also in all characteristics
i. The reason that the commentator “already knows” that this attack will not lead to a goal in this way is a question of probabilities on which the speaker relies. It is VERY, VERY rare that a goal is actually scored. One could think about football itself or the entertainment value. Or you could realise how probability theory works: the occurrence of an event with a probability, however small, will eventually be realised (according to Murphy’s law) if you only repeat the experiment often enough. That means: the chance of a hit is very small EVERY SINGLE TRIAL. Nevertheless, a goal will be scored at some point. And this goal will NOT be the result of a chain of errors. Remember Christoph Daum, Ulf Kirsten and the “hoover representative mentality”. Keep trying, eventually it’s in (the hoover sells).
j. Take an example from English reporting. Sky England is doing well not because the audience is so different and so much more fanatical, but because the coverage is so good, so objective, so compelling, so appropriate. If you ask English style, it might be, “I am not so sure, I don’t know, can’t say that, maybe, maybe yes, maybe no.”
k. NO after-action reports. Makes a good commentary live, which you can listen to anytime. As it is, both live commentary and after commentary are useless. Role model: England.
