Growth & Jobs | Making a career of football commentary

Across the globe, the world of sports has become big business. Included in the business of sports are countless opportunities for people to become involved without being athletes.

Here in Jamaica, commentary is a niche market that is growing slowly, but surely and is creating many opportunities for sports lovers.

The job of a sports commentator is to bring the events to life, and they do so through witty comments or sayings, which sometimes become iconic and stay with the viewers and listeners for a lifetime.

Their job is to describe big moments in ways that enhance the fan experience and take them to higher emotional heights, as well as impart knowledge to the less-informed, so it is important for commentators to do their research before events and the best at it are always unforgettable.

Every weekend and often during the week, there is a demand for sports commentary for local football, track and field, cricket, and other sporting events.

One of the football events that offer commentators a chance to showcase their talent and skills is the Wray & Nephew Jamaica Premier League.

For the most part, matches are played on Sundays and Mondays, with the occasional midweek rescheduled games being played.

But it is on Sundays and Mondays that the likes of Donald Oliver and Dean Smith might be heard commentating on games for local and regional broadcast leaders. Oliver is a full-time employee at SportsMax while Smith is a freelancer, who does sports commentary on a part-time basis.

Both men were bitten by the “commentary bug” in their pre-teen years.

“Commentary started to capture my imagination from when I was about 10 or 11 years old,” Oliver explained.

“I’ve always been interested in hearing sports commentators, especially on the radio. I loved how they would describe a football or a cricket game. Sometimes when the games were on television, I’d still listen to the radio commentary at the same time.

“I learned a lot from listening to Simon Crosskill, Ed Barnes, Lance Whittaker, Fazeer Mohammed and Andrew Mason. And after memorising what would have been hundreds of lines from their commentary calls over the years, I figured that I had the ability to do it,” he revealled.

For Smith it was a little bit earlier.

“At that time, I was about seven to eight years old. I got interested in sports commentary by listening to the radio coverage of the ‘Road to France’ campaign. I found it thrilling like some of the lines from Ed Barnes such as “punched away by Barrett”.

“Additionally playing “FIFA 99” stirred my desire to be a commentator, as well. The voice of John Motson in that game and the witty comments had me. Interestingly my late father would just sit and listen to us playing, as well. We all were fascinated by it,” Smith added.

career path

Oliver who has won several awards in journalism including Sports Journalist of the Year in 2015 and 2021 and best TV feature/documentary for “Carifta 49” in 2022 started doing Premier League coverage in 2016 on SportsMax and believes that if given the chance it can become a career path for many.

“It can be a career path, providing one gets the opportunity on a regular basis. As a full-time employee of SportsMax where I produce live TV and write and produce promos, features and documentaries, host programmes, as well as edit, I can’t afford to do commentary full time,” Oliver acknowledged.

“Would I like to be a full-time commentator and travel all over the world to do so?

A resounding “Yes!”

Smith, who is a full-time pastor at the Gentiles International Church, started doing commentary on the JPL in 2023.

He too recommends sports commentary as a career path.

“Certainly, beyond the ability to do something that you love, it does provide opportunities to meet lots of people and experience new places.”

As sports continues to grow in Jamaica and the creative economy expands opportunities will certainly begin to appear for sports commentators, whether full time, part time or online.