You don’t need Jon Rothstein to tell you that this is March. And with March Madness almost underway, it’s time for us to do the thing that all sports blogs used to do and post our own bracket.
Reader-generated rankings are one of the realest things that we do at Awful Announcing because it’s all about you and your thoughts on who’s hot and who’s not in sports media. So for this year’s March Madness, we’re putting the millions and millions of you on the spot once again to name the Best Broadcast Booth in sports.
A total of 32 broadcast teams made the cut from all over the world of sports. And we’ve come up with the field based on two criteria — either they are a top broadcast team for a major sport or they placed in the Top Four of our most recent NFL or college football announcer rankings. There were 33 broadcast booths using that criteria, our sincerest apologies to CBS’s Kevin Harlan and Trent Green that finished fourth in the NFL announcer rankings as our last team out.
Today marks voting for all sixteen Round 1 matchups. You can see the brackets and polls below. Voting will end on Wednesday with Round 2 set to take place on Thursday. Rounds 3 and 4 take place on Monday and Thursday next week with the championship matchup on Monday April 7 to coincide with the NCAA Tournament national title game.
Happy voting!
Round 1 – Region 1
Joe Davis, Greg Olsen (Fox NFL) vs Leigh Diffey, Steve Letarte, Jeff Burton (NBC NASCAR)
Ryan Ruocco, Rebecca Lobo (ESPN WBB) vs Dan Shulman, jay Bilas (ESPN MBB)
Jim Nantz, Trevor Immelman (CBS PGA) vs Jake Zivin, Taylor Twellman (Apple MLS)
Noah Eagle, Todd Blackledge (NBC CFB) vs Jon Anik, Joe Rogan (ESPN UFC)
Round 1 – Region 2
Mike Breen, Doris Burke, Richard Jefferson (ESPN NBA) vs Al Michaels, Kirk Herbstreit (Amazon NFL)
Peter Drury, Graeme Le Saux, Lee Dixon (NBC EPL) vs Joe Davis, John Smoltz (Fox MLB)
Mike Tirico, Cris Collinsworth (NBC NFL) vs Mike Joy, Kevin Harvick, Clint Bowyer (Fox NASCAR)
Chris Fowler, John McEnroe (ESPN tennis) vs Kenny Albert, Ed Olczyk, Brian Boucher (TNT NHL)
Round 1 – Region 3
Ian Eagle, Grant Hill, Bill Raftery (CBS MBB) vs Dan Hicks, Kevin Kisner (NBC PGA)
David Croft, Martin Brundle (ESPN/Sky F1) vs John Strong, Stuart Holden (Fox soccer)
Sean McDonough, Greg McElroy (ESPN CFB) vs Michael Cole, Pat McAfee, Wade Barrett (Peacock WWE)
Kevin Harlan, Reggie Miller (TNT NBA) vs Gus Johnson, Joel Klatt (Fox CFB)
Round 1 – Region 4
Chris Fowler, Kirk Herbstreit (ESPN CFB) vs Jim Nantz, Tony Romo (CBS NFL)
Sean McDonough, Ray Ferraro (ESPN NHL) vs Kevin Burkhardt, Tom Brady (Fox NFL)
Joe Buck, Troy Aikman (ESPN NFL) vs Brad Nessler, Gary Danielson (CBS CFB)
Brian Anderson, Ron Darling, Jeff Francoeur (TBS MLB) vs Karl Ravech, David Cone, Eduardo Perez (ESPN MLB)
