Discover How Gaming Commentary Borrows From Live Broadcasts

I grew up with two voices in my ear every fall Sunday: the play by play man calling the action and the analyst explaining it. When I started playing football video games as a kid, those voices followed me into the living room. Madden itself was in the booth for years alongside Pat Summerall, and later versions brought in their own broadcast teams. The idea was simple. If the game sounds like a broadcast, it feels like the real thing.

Decades later, gaming commentary has grown into its own craft. It still borrows heavily from live television, but it also has to solve problems no real broadcaster ever faces. This piece looks at what the two have in common, where they differ, and what each can learn from the other.

The two person booth is the template

Almost every sports video game uses the same structure as a live broadcast: one voice for play by play, one voice for color. The play by play voice tells you what is happening. The color voice tells you why it matters. In a real game, that pairing works because the two announcers react to each other in real time. In a video game, the conversation has to be stitched together from thousands of recorded lines.

NBA 2K has used Kevin Harlan as its lead play by play voice for many years, and his energy is a big reason the game feels like a real broadcast. In Madden, the booth was reworked for Madden NFL 17 with Brandon Gaudin and Charles Davis, a change aimed at making the commentary sound less repetitive and more responsive to the game situation. Soccer games like the old FIFA series paired Martin Tyler with Alan Smith for years, borrowing the rhythm of British match coverage.

All of these share one goal: to make you forget you are listening to recordings.

What games borrow from TV

Beyond the booth, gaming commentary pulls several specific tools from live broadcasts. Here are the ones I notice most:

• Storylines. A good broadcast sets up storylines before kickoff. Many games now do the same, with intros that mention a player chasing a record or a rivalry between two teams.
• Situational context. Real announcers remind you of the down, distance, and time remaining. Game commentary does the same, especially in close games late in the fourth quarter.
• Replays with analysis. After a big play, games cut to a replay while the analyst explains what happened. That is straight from television.
• Halftime and studio segments. Some titles have experimented with halftime shows and highlights from around the league, modeled on studio programming.

The goal in every case is immersion. The more the game looks and sounds like the broadcast you watch on Sundays, the easier it is to feel like the stakes are real.

The problems game commentators have that broadcasters do not

A real announcer calls one game at a time. A video game commentator has to call every possible game at once. Lines are recorded months before release, often in long studio sessions, and then the game's audio system picks which lines to play based on what is happening.

That creates a few problems that live broadcasts never face:

1. Repetition. If you play 50 games in a season, you will hear the same lines again and again. Real broadcasters never repeat themselves word for word.
2. Timing. A line about a player's hot streak can play right after he fumbles. The audio system cannot always read the moment.
3. Outdated information. Commentary recorded before the season cannot know what happens during it. A line praising a player's chemistry with a quarterback can sound strange after that quarterback gets traded.

I have heard a game announcer praise my defense for its discipline seconds after I gave up a 70 yard touchdown. It is funny the first time. By the twentieth game, many players mute the commentary altogether.

The common opinion I think is unfair

A popular complaint among sports gamers is that game commentary is worthless and should be turned off immediately. Plenty of guides recommend muting it on day one and playing music or a podcast instead. I understand the frustration, but I think that advice throws away something useful.

For newer football fans especially, game commentary is a teaching tool. When the analyst points out that a defense brought a blitz from the slot, or that an offense is running out of a certain formation, that is free education. It is often simplified, but it teaches the vocabulary you need to understand real broadcasts. I have friends who learned what a nickel package was from listening to a game, not from watching on television.

My suggestion is a middle path. Leave commentary on for your first few weeks with a new game. Once the lines start repeating, turn it down rather than off, so you still catch the situational cues. Mute it when you are deep into a long franchise season and know the voices by heart.

What live broadcasts could learn from games

The borrowing goes both ways. Real broadcasts have picked up a few ideas from games, like on screen graphics that show player speed or route paths, and virtual first down lines that most viewers now take for granted. Some alternate broadcasts aimed at younger fans have experimented with even more game style visuals.

I think broadcasts could go further. Games show the whole field at once. Most TV coverage shows the ball and little else. An optional all-22 style view during replays would help fans understand what the analyst is talking about. Teddy makes a similar point in his piece on how sports video games teach players to read the real game, where the camera angle is the whole argument.

Try listening differently

This weekend, watch the first quarter of a real game with the sound on, and pay attention to what the analyst says between plays. Then play a quarter of a football video game with the commentary on, and listen for the same kinds of lines. Note how often the game voice explains a strategy and how often it just repeats a stat.

You will start hearing the craft in both. For more on how games get covered and argued about, the Sports Media section is where we talk about the broadcast side, and the Games section has the rest of our gaming coverage.