The world is getting smaller, and that’s especially true in the world of sports. The lines between American sports fans and sports fans from other parts of the globe are blurring, especially when it comes to the world’s game, soccer.
These days, it’s pretty common for American sports fans to have a favorite Premier League side, have an emotional investment in Cristiano Ronaldo’s contract status, or have a working knowledge of the current Serie A standings. The days when soccer was something only other countries cared about are pretty much over.
However, that’s not true for everyone in American sports. The older generation is still likely to be way more invested in the NFL and NBA than they are in Bundesliga, let alone know what the Bundesliga is. And while that’s fairly harmless for your parents or grandparents, it’s probably worth knowing a thing or two about the “other” football if you’re going to be on television talking about it.
Such was the case on Sunday when, during CBS’s broadcast of the Jacksonville Jaguars – Houston Texans game, Greg Gumbel did an ad read for Paramount Plus’s extensive soccer coverage. And while that might sound great to the casual fan, it was the specific pronunciations of the leagues involved that did not sound great at all.
There’s too much here to fit in one tweet pic.twitter.com/TkNFpAKsXl
— Jackie Maynard (@jmaynard_21) September 12, 2021
If Greg Gumbel was hoping to reach peak Your Dad status, he has certainly achieved it here. Greg kicks things off by pronouncing Serie A as “Syria Ahh.” Then we got what sounds like “You-fa” for UEFA. Thankfully he got an easy one in NWSL to reset, though even that has a bit of a stutter-start. Finally, Gumbel was stymied by the appearance of CONCACAF, which he seemingly pronounced as “Concoffiff” and “Concaffa.” Take your pick.
Good job, good effort, Greg.
Gumbel then decided to just power through with an “I dunno” before wrapping up the read and trying to get back to the pigskin version of football in front of him as fast as possible.
However, the ‘Murica pièce de résistance seems to come right at the end of the clip, in what sounds like Adam Archuleta chiming in to say “uh, no thanks” before he and Greg are blissfully returned to the safe havens of Houston, Texas and American football. We’re sure the folks at Paramount Plus appreciated that.
Pick your character.
I’m the “uh, no thanks” at the end.
— Jackie Maynard (@jmaynard_21) September 12, 2021
Ad reads for modern things that older broadcasters aren’t familiar with seem to be all the rage these days. We were recently treated to Cardinals broadcaster Mike Shannon attempting to figure out what NFTs are in real-time during a recent game. To be fair, not many of us could have helped Mike out on that one.
As for Greg, we suggest keeping a pronunciation guide handy next time. Especially before you end up needing to pronounce things like Leicester, Ajax, Olympiacos, and Juventus.
