THEME

Amanda Smith: Today, the art of the sports commentators: the people who unfold the unscripted drama of a live sports event for us on radio or TV.

Commentator (Peter Sterling): ... and big butts, two tries and both out wide. You don't see him standing out there too often, but it was set up by the Johns' magic again ...

Peter Sterling: I admit that I have the best job in the world, and I think people look at it as being an easy job. I guess I'd like to defend us and say it's not as easy as what people think. Mainly because you've got to be conscious that you do have to be entertaining and you've got to be continually coming up with something new all the time, and that's not an easy thing to do. So it's a great job and I'm sure that people sit at home and say 'Well gee, I wish I was doing that', but it's mentally a difficult thing to do because you have to be very conscious of what you say. It's got to have a certain quality about it and it's got to be something different to what was said a couple of days ago or last week and the week before.

Commentator (Tim Lane): ... a mighty crowd here. Warne bowls, flipper. Pulled away on the on-side and that's gone to the boundary as well! Four more to Dravid who goes past ...

Commentator: As a broadcaster on radio, you are the message (and that's not to sound too self-important about it) but what you convey is the sum total of what the audience picks up, I suppose with some crowd effects thrown in. But you're basically telling the story through your eyes, so radio provides the broadcaster with a great opportunity.

Commentator (Bruce McAvaney): ... It's going with a torpedo; he's gone on to it, and gone on to it, and gone on to it. And he's kicked a goal! ...

Commentator: From a broadcasting point of view, from a caller's point of view, there are two things here. First and foremost is that you're trying to be very descriptive and emotive and exciting and all the things that make for a good commentary. At the same time, we've also got an obligation to our station and our network. So at half-time if it's a stinker of a match, we've got to be a little bit careful about saying 'Gee, this is terrible' because we don't want people to switch off. It would be like Bill Collins, as a commentator on film, coming on in the intermission and saying 'Gee, this is a dreadful movie, isn't it?'

Amanda Smith: Hi, I'm Amanda Smith, and The Sports Factor today is talking to blokes who call the shots: Bruce McAvaney, Tim Lane, and Peter Sterling, and their views on what makes a good sports broadcaster, and how much they shape what we at home feel about a sports event.

Tim Lane is one of ABC Radio's main sports broadcasters. He's covered the last three Olympic Games as well as Commonwealth Games. But he's probably best known to listeners for his cricket and Australian football commentating: two very different sports that have very different demands of the broadcaster. Not that Tim has a preference.

Tim Lane: It's a bit like when I was a kid, and on the 1st October I'd go out into the park and hammer the stumps into the ground and my big brother and I would toss up to see who batted and see who bowled. And if someone arrived at the house that day and asked me whether I preferred cricket or football, I'd say 'Oh, cricket, no worries'. And then on about 1st April the next year, the stumps would be put in the garage and the footy would come out and if I was asked the same question it would be 'Football. Absolutely, definitely.

And I'm probably a bit like that with broadcasting now I think. I mean the challenge of broadcasting in some ways transcends what's going on in the sporting field from my point of view, because my job is actually to broadcast it. But they're both tremendous fun and tremendously challenging in very different ways.

Football is a little more like reading a script which is being written, but written very quickly, and so your comprehension powers and your ability to translate into words which hopefully inform and entertain, is challenged. It's very much a speed reading process in a way. Whereas with cricket it all happens much more slowly, it's unscripted, you really have to invent the script as you go along. So it challenges you in a very different way.

I think cricket broadcasting is in some ways more a test of your own humanity and your imagination. With football it's there, it's all there, and as I say it's more like a speed test. But with cricket you really often have to dig quite deep. I mean there are moments where I go to air to do my 20 minutes and the score is 4 for 180; and as I stand up to leave 20 minutes later, it's 4 for 180: there hasn't been a wicket, there hasn't been a run scored in 20 minutes. If I haven't felt that I've been making it entertaining and interesting through the 20 minutes, I'll be disappointed in myself. So that is always a challenge.

Amanda Smith: Not to mention that a five-day test match is a long time to spend with the one game.

Tim Lane: Yes you do live a phase of your life through the course of a Test match. I mean a lot can happen; five days can be a long time in a lifespan (even though hopefully it's just a very small fraction of the time one lives). But I suppose you're telling your own story of a cricket match, of five days in the life of cricket, which can become five days in your own life to a certain extent. Because your moods fluctuate, you wake up some days feeling really good, you wake up other days not feeling so good. Health and well-being can change over the course of the Test match. People have died during Test matches. I think 'Johnnie' Moyes, who was a legendary Australian commentator, he was the expert commentator back in the '50s and into the '60s, I seem to recall died during a Test match in Sydney back in 1962/3.

Amanda Smith: Yes, well they say sport's a matter of life and death.

And health was an issue for Tim Lane as far as the particular challenges of broadcasting the recent cricket series from India.

Tim Lane: I suppose the first one was to make sure I was at the microphone every day. There were two of us, Jim Maxwell and myself, covering the tour, and you can't help but be conscious of the fact that if one happens to go down with something, (and it's always on in India) you're in a bit of trouble. So that was a major one, to make sure we were there.

I suppose apart from that, obviously to broadcast the cricket in a coherent and comprehensive way, but I think more so, and we both regarded it as a major priority, to somehow try and reflect cricket in India, and its personality, its vibrancy, its difference, from cricket here or in other parts of the cricketing world. There are tremendous crowds, great movement, noise, and just life in India is so different; you feel that every moment of every day. And so I suppose we felt a need to try and convey that if we possibly could.

Coomentators (Peter Roebuck & Tim Lane): ... Well you'd never guess it if you listened to the crowd, there are drinks on the field, this is a quiet spell. There's nothing happening on the field, yet there's absolute bedlam in the stadium, or not quite bedlam but there's certainly immense noise and excitement and vitality. And everyone's looking back up towards the pavilions and the commentary boxes, and waving to their friends and waving to famous people, and just living for the moment, living for the cricket.

Well apart from being a wonderfully atmospheric stadium that holds so many people ...

Amanda Smith: Before moving to radio permanently in 1989, Tim Lane was a sports commentator on television, in the days when ABC-TV had the rights to cover the major fixtures. But radio sports commentary, where as Tim says, 'You are the message', must be a more difficult job?

Tim Lane: If anything, I think the television job is more difficult, because as a TV commentator, your role is a real balancing act. You have to try and supplement the pictures, but the fact is the consumer can see, has seen, what has happened. So whatever you say about it, the audience might agree, might disagree. If they agree, you're perhaps stating the obvious; if they disagree, they think you're a mug. So it can be a bit no-win on TV. Except in the rare circumstance when the commentator can offer something genuinely enlightening to everybody. Not always easy to do, even for people of vast cricketing experience. And that I think is why you hear so much criticism of television commentators, no matter what the sport. I hear it of football commentators, cricket commentators, and tennis commentators and what have you, because I think their situation is rather no-win. On radio, if you present it in a nice personable, interesting, lively way, the audience is going to like you, particularly if their team's winning!

Amanda Smith: Nevertheless, there's nothing like the pictures that the sophisticated technology used in say, Channel Nine's cricket coverage can give you. Although Brian Matthews, the author of a book called 'Oval Dreams', a series of essays about sport, thinks they still haven't got the commentary style right on television.

Brian Matthews: The point is we can see the game and these days we can see it beautifully. But my view is that quite a lot of the commentators don't appear to realise that, in cricket and other sports, but let's stick to cricket. We're constantly being told things that we either have already seen or can see by the commentators. To take the sort of positive example: Richie Benaud, in my view, is so good, obviously partly because of his knowledge, experience and all that, he's a very canny judge of the game and so on. But he's especially good because he knows when to shut up. And on television on cricket, when to shut up is quite a lot of the time in my view. But there are commentators on Channel Nine cricket who never shut up, and it simply defies the whole medium.

'The 12th Man': Benaud's training methods are certainly unique. Take for example his one-on-one bonding sessions, where commentators pair off to discuss everything from microphone technique and the role of the commentator in the '90s, to cricket theology and commentary philosophy.

'Bill Lawry': ... check one-two, check one-two, two, two, Desmond two-two; Desmond two-two.

'Richie Benaud': Come on Bill, stop mucking around will you?

'The 12th Man': And then of course, there's Benaud's legendary free-form commentary workouts, where the fellows just go for it, ad-libbing their way through simulated commentary box situations.

'Bill Lawry': Oh gee, tremendous catch, a classic ...

'Tony Greig' : Yes, he's gone!

'Ian Chappell : ... hit that one straight through the covers ...

'Tony Greig: Oh, he's on his way!

'The 12th Man': And so it goes on, hour after hour, day after day, a punishing schedule by anyone's standards. But Benaud insists it's all worthwhile.

'Richie Benaud': Look, it's no use coming into the season cold, hitting the commentary box stale and rusty and trying to warm up as the season progresses. I want these blokes to be all fired up and ready to hit the ground running, right from the opening match.

All right, Bill and Tony, back to work now please. You'll have to stay behind again.

Amanda Smith: Another commentator dealing with the challenge of television is Peter Sterling, one of the Channel Nine rugby league commentary team, whose job is to try to offer the viewer more than what they can see for themselves.

Peter Sterling: I think one of the important things about football coverage is that you don't state the obvious. So if you are stating the obvious, you're probably better sitting back and allowing the pictures to talk to themselves. Obviously you've got to say what is happening, but I don't think that the general viewing public need to be hit over the head with what they can see, and that is obviously, the obvious.

'Paul Vautin': And oh no, give yourself an uppercut son, the pass to Meninga was never on, it's an absolute Barry Crocker of a pass to boot, and the Newcastle winger, Jamie Ainscough, Johnny-on-the-spot pounces on the ball, but at a zillion miles an hour and says 'you little Ronnie Coot', and off he goes to score one of the easiest meat pies he'll ever score.

'Ray Warren': Oh! Sensational piece of commentary from the fat man. Dead set had everything going for it: cliches, rhyming slang, gross exaggerations, it had the lot. Vintage Fatty Vautin commentary there for you ...

Amanda Smith: Now that wasn't a real bit of rugby league commentary of course, but it's not that far off the mark, and certainly makes the point about the use of cliched language in sports broadcasting. But for Peter Sterling, sometimes a cliche is the best way of communicating an idea quickly.

Peter Sterling: I think that it's something that you should be very aware of, but you've also got to remember that the cliches and that are what people do understand. They know exactly what you're talking about. I don't like cliches, and yes, in sport, in every sport, the use of cliches is much over-used, and I don't think it particularly desirable. So I try to make sure that I try and keep them out of what I have to say as much as possible. But when it is said, there is a fairly universal meaning to them and you know that people at home are getting the gist of what is being said. So at times I think they're a necessary evil.

Amanda Smith: Now Peter Sterling's role in the rugby league telecast mix is as the 'colour person', the ex-champion player who gives the 'expert comments'; along with other former players Paul Vautin and Steve Roach (who does the sideline comments), while Ray Warren does the play-by-play description. So what makes for a good sports broadcast team?

Peter Sterling: Well I think the one that you just stated: obviously a distinct lack of ability and a very motley crew.

But I think that we have a good rapport. One of the things I suppose about Ray Warren, he's extremely experienced, he knows the game particularly well, and probably Paul, Steven and my job is to round that out without maybe an insight that we've been able to accumulate over the years of having played the game. And I'm not saying that having played the game makes you a better person to commentate on sport than somebody who hasn't. But I do think there is a certain amount of credibility there straight away when you can talk about experiences or times in a game, that the viewing public know that you've experienced first-hand over your years of playing.

So I think it's important that we have a nice balance there. We're very, very conscious of not trying to fool the public. We don't try and make something sound exciting if it's not exciting. And probably most importantly is that we believe (and it's not difficult to do) that if we're having a good time with the game, and we're enjoying what we're doing, then the people who are watching it will do exactly the same. They'll sit back and because we're getting some genuine enjoyment out of it, I think they feed off that.

Amanda Smith: But can the clubby nature of the fellas in the commentary box also be a bit of a turn-off? Especially when they are all famous ex-players. Like with Channel Nine's cricket commentary team of Richie Benaud, Tony Greig, Bill Lawry and Ian Chappell, all former Test Captains.

According to Brian Matthews, commentators should never put themselves before the game.

Brian Matthews: I just really don't like the razzamatazz side of it. It's sort of almost that the commentators are living off the game and aggrandising themselves. I don't mean financially, probably they are, but I mean egotistically, in reflection off the game. I'm thinking of cricket now because there are so many pretty prestigious ex-players on the commentary panel. There is a sense with all of them in their different ways, they know that they've done it and their track record is there. You certainly feel these commentators, these blokes, know that they are in a very special position in relation to you, the viewer. 'I've done it sport, and you haven't.'

So that's why I think somebody like Richie Benaud is very good, though there are many other reasons why he's very good. Because he's always sort of to one side of, and smaller than, the game. And I think Bruce McAvaney would come into that too, though he's perforce more of a talking presence. Nevertheless, he does a hell of a lot of homework. It's quite clear that he recognises that the sport is the thing, that's why he's there; the sport's not there because he's there, it's the other way round.

Then there are other commentators who just (I think it's easy to think of them without naming them), for whom the whole business of commenting, describing a footy game for instance, is their kind of variety show. And it demeans the game, it demeans the listener, (thinking of radio) and it's not accurate.

Amanda Smith: Brian Matthews, who writes on sport and popular culture, and who's a columnist with the Weekend Australian magazine. And Brian mentioned there his admiration for Bruce McAvaney, who's probably Australia's best-known television sportscaster. Bruce started in the sports media over 20 years ago on Adelaide radio; then on TV with the Ten and Seven networks. He's covered everything from greyhound racing to the Olympic Games. Even so, Bruce McAvaney reckons there's always more to learn. Like at the Australian Open tennis this year when he shared the commentary with the ex-tennis champ, John McEnroe.

Bruce McAvaney: Sitting alongisde him, I found it very interesting how he talked about the psyche of a tennis player. It was more than the score in a way, it was how big points in tennis make the difference; how you can win a match really off one point, off one situation, break point on your serve, break point or deuce or something. But a big moment. And he talked about the psyche of the player, he was quickly onto it. He knew the history of the players, but also the body language, the way they attacked the ball, the way they constructed their points. And he was able to bring that back into our terminology rather than the technical tennis terminology.

And I found it really interesting because I think for all of us, the most interesting and emotive thing about sport is what happens in the head. There are great athletes, physically we are in awe of them, but when it comes back to psychology, temperament, strength of character, we can all relate to that because that's us in everyday life. We don't have to be playing tennis or football for that to occur to all of us. And I think that we can relate to that much better than we can relate to Pete Sampras hitting a forehand or serving because we can't do that. But faced with adversity, or almost about to win, we can actually relate to that in our general life, in work, family, recreation, play.

And yes, that's what I found interesting, and he brought it back to that so often.

Amanda Smith: In the first two months of this year, as well as commentating the tennis, the Australian Open, Bruce McAvaney also covered the World Swimming Championships in Perth, and the Winter Olympics in Nagano. But how, as a commentator, do you bring alive for viewers, sports and competitors that not many of us know or care much about?

Bruce McAvaney: If it's a Commonwealth Games or an Olympic Games or World Championships, it's really Australia versus The Rest in many ways. So people switch on because they want to see Australia winning; they want to see the flag, they want to hear the national anthem; they want to see our boys and girls doing well. So, as a broadcaster, you have information about those people, and on television you might show profiles, you get to know them through interviews. You personalise them through information, you might have their mum and dad in the crowd, whatever tactics we use as broadcasters or our producers use as makers of television programs.

Now I think one of the keys is to build the opposition up as well; because wherever you go when it's a world class sporting event, everybody that's there is really good anyway, they're the best in their country. So I think it's very important to give people a sense of the opposition, and who are the great stars from those events. And in swimming they might be Alexander Popov, the Russian who's been the best sprinter for many, many years; they might be Amy van Dyken who won a whole heap of gold medals, I think five in Atlanta, or whatever; in athletics it might be Michael Johnson or Sergey Bubka or somebody. So it's a matter of flying the Aussie flag, but at the same time presenting to the public some fabric about the great swimmers, (using swimming in this example) around the world. Because then that whole event becomes far more interesting. If you've got three or four people that people care about when they're on the blocks, then that's going to make a big difference.

A very simple example would be Popov, stabbed in Russia about 18 months ago by a street vendor. You tell that story, you then see him on the blocks and he swims, people are going to care about him, they're actually going to care about him, they're going to have a feeling for him. You just say Alexander Popov, Olympic champion, world record holder, sure that is great, but people probably don't emotionally feel for him, they just think he's a good swimmer. But if you tell something about them, if you get people to know something about them, their character and their past and what sort of person they are, then I think people get to care about them. So I think that's one of the keys to all of those events, is that you try and be as informative as possible about who you're actually broadcasting.

WHISTLE Commentary (Bruce McAvaney): You could cut the air with a knife. I know it's an old cliche, but it is also true in here at the moment. My heart is thumping. That's Shimizu's mum with a hanky to her mouth, she can hardly bear the tension ... STARTING GUN ... Clean start, Shimizu got away well, gets down low; I like what I'm seeing so far ...

Amanda Smith: As well as covering all the big international sporting events, Bruce McAvaney's regular winter gig is calling Australian Football League matches on the TV. Here it's not a question of the sport or the competitors being unfamiliar to viewers. But what about when you have to call a boring, or a scrappy, or a terribly one-sided game of football?

Bruce McAvaney: It's interesting because in many one-sided games they're very exciting because of the quality of the football. I can say this very honestly, that I'm never bored at the football, I never have a bad day calling the football. Some matches leave you just wrung out because they're so exciting and you're basically floating at the end of the game and your adrenalin's flowing, your ears are buzzing because of what's happened through the headphones. Other matches are 'Well, that was OK wasn't it? But it wasn't great'.

So when it's a really poor game of football, you look for positives, but at the same time if a team's playing badly, there's always an interest in a team playing badly. Because supporters, in a funny way, get just as big a kick out of their team being down as they do being up, because they've got something to grizzle about. It's human nature, it's what make footy tick.

When a team's playing great football and destroying the opposition it can also be quite exciting to watch. You know, if Nathan Buckley's in full flight; I did Collingwood and Richmond a few weeks ago on Friday Night Football when Collingwood had the game basically won at half-time. But they were playing really exciting football. The Rocca brothers were in tandem, I think they kicked nine goals between them that day. Buckley was on fire, things were happening for Collingwood. There 78,000 people there; every time Collingwood kicked a goal there's was a mighty roar.

So look, it's not as bad as it all seems. No matter what happens in a match I think there's plenty to get out of it; it's just the nature of the game. Someone's going to take a great mark, somebody's going to have a free kick paid against them they shouldn't, the crowd's going to boo the umpire. There's a million things that happen during the course of a football match. You've got to be aware of them, and I think bring them to the attention of people at home.

Amanda Smith: But when it comes to Aussie Rules commentary, nobody commands attention like Rex Hunt, on Melbourne commercial radio station 3AW.

Commentary (Rex Hunt): Well, this has been one of the great exhibitions in modern history by Adelaide. As coming out, James, he's playing in a premiership side, kicks it onto the wing. Adelaide are going to bury 'em. Here comes a lead, Smart. He's up, he can't take it, but Bond will hand-pass it. No, he'll kick another goal. They'll just bury 'em now. They'll just grind them into the dirt, they will grind them. That's a sign of a great side! Adelaide are just being sensational!

Sam Newman: Oh shut up!

Rex Hunt: They are. Get stuffed! They have been sensational. I've lost more than you have and that proves that the game is bigger than anything that you can throw up, idiot! Adelaide are supreme and have richly deserved this title as the team of the year!

Sam Newman: Oh stop squaring up for the 50-grand you've lost. They've been good today, they've been fantastic, they're going to be the premiers, but don't go on and on about it for God's sake, you make me puke!

Rex Hunt: Least I've got the guts to say they're a good side!

Amanda Smith: You've got to admit it, it's an idiosyncratic call. And on air Rex Hunt refers to the rival footy commentary team on ABC Radio as the 'Tobin Brothers', after a well-known firm of funeral directors, and because of their somewhat more restrained delivery. But with Rex Hunt's mob winning hands-down in the ratings survey released this week, is there any pressure on ABC Radio to change their style? Tim Lane.

Tim Lane: Well we're probably doing it similarly to the way we've always done it, although we have bit by bit changed. When I listen to broadcasts from the 1960s, I realise how much quieter, how much less animated the commentators were back then. And yet I used to love listening to the ABC broadcasts back in the 1960s because of the factuality of it all; you got it all, you got it delivered in a very concise and accurate way, which I used to really enjoy. And I think lots of people appreciate the fact that they still get that now, but with a slightly more, well a rather more animated delivery.

I guess the nature of commercial broadcasting is always to stretch the boundaries, to take things to the threshold and perhaps even beyond. And so what 3AW, and particularly Rex Hunt does in Melbourne, is to explore the boundaries of animated broadcasting and to take it, as we say these days, way over the top. That's what they do, because they do that and do it unashamedly and I guess do it well because it has a lot of appeal, they tend to take the mickey out of us, or something else out of us, because of the fact that we don't do that. But we'll stick with what we've been doing. I think it works very well, I mean it seems that there's a demand for both. They rate very well, they've rated a bit better than us in recent years, but I think in the total context of it all, the sorts of audiences we have for the way in which we do it, would indicate that there is a very strong demand for that kind of delivery.

Commentary (Tim Lane): Plenty of time left, but where are those goals going to come from? They must find some precision as they work their way towards goal. It is lacking at the moment. Pittman and Loewe wrestle. Loewe cleverly. Burke snaps towards goal, and kicks a goal. The co-captains: brilliant work Stewart Loewe, used the body, masterly little palm to Burke who snapped as though he was shelling peas. 12-11-83 10-14-74 ...

Commentary (Rex Hunt): ... gee whiz, what was that for? Clutching the top of his hair. I'd love someone to touch the top of my hair, because I ain't got any. Hall off for St Kilda, Sierakowski in, and Jarman goes bang for his second. And Adelaide get a charity! They're 12-11-83, they've got another buffer at 15 points and the Saints are under the pump! The St Kilda's side is in crisis here at the MCG! ...

Amanda Smith: Well Rex Hunt might be the most over-the-top of the sports commentators, but you'd have to say that it's a performance that he's completely in control of, because in a way he's sending up the medium.

But surely every serious sports commentator's worst nightmare is of losing control when they're broadcasting live to air.

Jonathan Agnew: He tried to step over the stumps and just flicked a bail with his right --

Brian Johnston: He more or less tried to do the splits over it and unfortunately the inner part of his thigh must have just removed the bail.

Jonathan Agnew: He just didn't quite get his leg over.

Brian Johnston: Anyhow -- he did very well indeed, batting 131 minutes and hit three fours. Aggers, do stop it! Um, Lawrence -- always entertaining, batted for 35 -- (LAUGHS) -- 35 minutes, hit a four over the wicketkeeper's -- Aggers, for goodness sake stop it!

Jonathan Agnew: Yes Lawrence (LAUGHING) terribly well --

Amanda Smith: A classic moment from the commentary box: the BBC's Brian Johnston and Jonathan Agnew, losing it badly there with nowhere to hide. And that's The Sports Factor for now. Behind the scenes this week: Jim Cathcart, as well as Peter Jackson on technicals; and as always, producer Michael Shirrefs. I'm Amanda Smith, I hope you'll join me again next Friday.

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The Sports Factor can be heard on Radio National, 8.30am Fridays (Repeated Friday evenings at 8.30pm).