Commentator evaluation: Chris Fowler

[Conigliaro's Potential]

With the Rose Bowl taking place later today - and with the Australian Open on the horizon - let's take a look at Chris Fowler. I actually first seeing Fowler on "Scholastic Sports America" in the late 1980s, and he developed into a very polished studio host before becoming a play-by-play man. I think college football and tennis is a pretty unusual combination, but Fowler has risen to the most prominent commentary position in both...but do you think he's any good? Rate him and report on him below.

Happy New Year, everyone!

 

[Reverend]

Happy new year.

 

[Ale Xander]

He's best as a studio host and a talking head, but he's smart in that he knows to STFU and let Herbie talk.

Really tremendous that he's great both at tennis and college football. That's Verne-level.

 

[Conigliaro's Potential]

By the by, I wonder if people feel that Fowler's commentary should be judged against all football commentators - NFL included - or only college football commentators. With analysts/color commentators, the knowledge of the college game relative to the pro game would seem to be unique enough to warrant differentiation, but I'm less sure that this is true when it comes to the nuts and bolts of play-by-play commentary. (Keith Jackson certainly could have held his own in a comparison with the best NFL guys of his day; I'm less sure that would be true for Fowler, Brad Nessler and/or Gus Johnson relative to Al Michaels, Joe Buck et al.)

 

[mauf]

By the by, I wonder if people feel that Fowler's commentary should be judged against all football commentators - NFL included - or only college football commentators. With analysts/color commentators, the knowledge of the college game relative to the pro game would seem to be unique enough to warrant differentiation, but I'm less sure that this is true when it comes to the nuts and bolts of play-by-play commentary. (Keith Jackson certainly could have held his own in a comparison with the best NFL guys of his day; I'm less sure that would be true for Fowler, Brad Nessler and/or Gus Johnson relative to Al Michaels, Joe Buck et al.)

How different is the job? I don’t think the college and pro games are so different that calling one requires a different skill set than calling the other. But I imagine the exorbitant budgets for NFL broadcasts, even compared to big-time CFB telecasts, gives NFL announcers a lot more tools at their disposal — or maybe a lot more opportunities to get confused. Would be interested in your perspective as someone who has actually called games.

 

[tims4wins]

Gus Johnson is interesting in that he has called NFL games too...

 

[Conigliaro's Potential]

How different is the job? I don’t think the college and pro games are so different that calling one requires a different skill set than calling the other. But I imagine the exorbitant budgets for NFL broadcasts, even compared to big-time CFB telecasts, gives NFL announcers a lot more tools at their disposal — or maybe a lot more opportunities to get confused. Would be interested in your perspective as someone who has actually called games.

Not that I've ever called NFL or CFB games directly, but I can't imagine there's any difference at the top end of the spectrum - Fowler and Herbstreit will have the same resources available to them as Tessitore and McFarland, for example, just to compare apples to apples across ESPN's biggest properties. (Same production support, same statistical resources, effectively the same number of cameras calling the games, etc.) Where it matters more is at the margins: I'm sure there are dozens of CFB telecasts every week which aren't anywhere near as well supported as the bottom-of-the-barrel NFL game in any given week - e.g., Bengals vs. Browns this past Sunday. Those CFB announcers will have to do a lot more of their own research before the games, for example, and won't have nearly the same access to statistics during the games.

(I do have personal experience of this when commentating on tennis matches, FWIW. Next week I'll be calling two quarterfinal matches on the main show court at the WTA tournament in Shenzen, and I think I'm going to have a full array of statistics available to me that I've never had before - in all of the ATP matches I've called on outside courts in the past, I've never once had access in real time to even the number of winners and unforced errors a player has hit, let alone more complex stats and shot charts that Hawkeye can help produce. As such, I've always felt like I've had one hand tied behind my back relative to the type of analysis I'd like to bring to the table; I'm sure that's true for other low-level guys in whatever sport, but I can't believe that someone like Chris Fowler will feel as though he's lacking in any way relative to any other commentator in the sports he's covering.)

 

[Granite Sox]

My instinct evaluated Fowler only among CFB peers. In that regard, I really enjoy him and gave him an overall rating of a 4.

Over recent years, he has gotten more emotional as he's announced football games, punctuating several plays a quarter with elevated pitch and volume. To my ears, it works, because it sounds genuine and appreciative of the effort and skill on display by young men in their late teens and early 20s. This doesn't work well in the NFL unless your name is Kevin Harlan. He's better (by a significant margin) on the college game than Tessitore, who also raises his voice frequently, but with less command of the moment and much less purpose. I don't get much of a whiff of bias from Fowler, either, so it is possible to really just enjoy the game he's calling between two good programs.

I watch very little tennis, but as I reflect on Fowler in those circumstances, his tone is almost the opposite of his CFB persona. In tennis, he is quiet, calm, and reverential during play (in deference to the sport's etiquette), but also does well in setting the stage before matches and during breaks.

In both environment I feel like he sets up his color analyst partners well and complements their skills.

His passion for both sports comes through in his focus and dedication. In this regard, I think it sets him apart from other multi-sport PBP folks like Nantz, Tirico, et al.

 

[ifmanis5]

A true pro's pro. Always ultra prepared and demands the same for all involved. Has been great at everything he does and commands the most respect out of just about anyone in house at Bristol. Not quite as versatile as Tirico or McDonough at play by play but an all-timer in studio and has enough juice to ignore typical corporate spin.