Sports television play-by-play commentator Lisa Byington. Courtesy FOX Sports (U.S.)
By Oliver Tse
Email: workingnow88@workingnow88.com
Twitter: @workingnow88
Published on June 16, 2019
LOS ANGELES – My “Worship at the Church of What’s Working Now” idea in 2017 to alert FOX Sports Executive Producer of World Cup Soccer David Neal of the YouTube account of sports play-by-play commentator Lisa Byington appears to have backfired.
I had originally believed that Byington would be an upgrade over play-by-play commentator Justin Kutcher, the #4 play-by-play announcer for the coverage of FIFA Women’s World Cup Canada 2015 on FOX Sports (U.S), because Byington has actual experience calling soccer television play-by-play of National Women’s Soccer League (Chicago Red Stars home games in 2015-2016) and Big Ten Conference Women’s college soccer, but overwhelming evidence from the past week now indicate to me that Byington is way too careless to be trusted to broadcast a big international sports event such as the Women’s World Cup.
A disgruntled viewer of the FOX Broadcast Network (U.S.) free-to-air broadcast of the Germany vs Spain FIFA Women’s World Cup France 2019 match on June 12, 2019 posted on Twitter the following complaint regarding Lisa Byington mispronouncing the abbreviated name of Spanish League club FC Barcelona, Barça (correct pronounciation: BAR-sah), as “BAR-kah”.
From forvo.com:
@LisaByington it’s pronounced Bar-saaah not Bar-ka. Barça
— Barça Dummy (@DonnyKerabatso2) June 12, 2019
Knowing that Byington was careless enough to miss the referee’s goal signal after Brazilian striker Cristiane tapped the ball passed the goal line during the Brazil vs Jamaica match on June 9, I decided to replay the video of the Germany vs Spain broadcast from June 12 off my Digital Video Recorder (DVR) for review.
I noticed that Byington and her match analyst/co-commentator, former U.S. Women’s National Team member Cat Whitehill, mispronounced at least 3 names prior to kickoff.
1. Germany head-coach Martina Voss-Tecklenburg. The letter “v” in German sounds like the letter “f” so the correct pronunciation of Voss should be FOS, not “VOS”.
From forvo.com:
A much more famous example of the German letter “v” is the automobile brand Volkswagen, a.k.a. “the people’s car”, which is pronounced FOLKS-vah-gen in German.
From forvo.com:
2. Spain midfielder Silvia Meseguer. If there are no accent marks to indicate stress, and if the Spanish name ends with a consonant other than the letter “n” or “s”, then the stress should be on the last syllable: meh-seh-GUER. Both Byington and Whitehill incorrectly put the stress on the first syllable “MEH-seh-guer”
3. Spain forward/midfielder Jennifer Hermoso: the letter “h” in names of Spanish origin are always silent so Hermoso is pronounced er-MOH-soh. Both Byington and Whitehill, as well as match analyst/co-commentator Kyndra de St. Aubin who called the Spain vs South Africa match on June 8, incorrectly pronounced the name as “her-MOH-soh”. Note that play-by-play commentator Jenn Hildreth, who called Spain vs South Africa, pronounced the name correctly, as did FOX Sports studio pundit Alexi Lalas.
From forvo.com:
As for the surname of Spain forward Nahikari García: even though gar-SEE-ah is acceptable on U.S. television because most people in the Americas with the surname García pronounce the name in Latin American Spanish, a more superior pronunciation is gar-THEE-ah because Nahikari García is from Spain (specifically the Basque region), where the Spanish dialect spoken in Madrid, castellano a.k.a. “Castilian Spanish”, is considered to be the standard.
From forvo.com:
During the 7th minute of the match, Byington mispronounced the first name of former German goalkeeper Nadine Angerer (correct pronounciation: nah-DEEN-nah) as if she were French “nah-DEEN”:
From forvo.com:
Fail to prepare, prepare to fail
Occasionally mispronouncing one name during a broadcast can be excused as all commentators are human, but mispronouncing 5 names in the first 15 minutes of a single broadcast, including 3 names before kickoff, is definitely NOT acceptable.
Byington can only blame herself for being careless and not preparing enough.
If Byington had spent 10 minutes looking up names using a website such as forvo.com with crowd-sourced pronunciations from native speakers, she would have gotten the correct pronunciations for all the names she mispronounced with the exception of Silvia Meseguer.
Byington was warned that she would be held accountable for mispronouncing multiple names during a Women’s World Cup match broadcast. Yet Byington would repeat the same mistake made by other sportscasters, such as this one who mispronounced at least 7 names during a 5-minute international soccer highlights segment:
During an episode of FOX Soccer Report which aired on FOX Soccer Channel (U.S.) and FOX Sports World Canada on September 24, 2011, sportscaster Julie Stewart-Binks (CAN) mispronounced at least 7 names: Mario Goetze, Stuttgart, Freiburg, Bayer Leverkusen, Roda JC Kerkrade, FC Twente and Feyenoord. On the bright side, she did pronounce Ajax (EYE-ax) correctly. Video courtesy Shaw Media/FOX Sports World Canada.
Part of me watch with disgust as I am witnessing yet another talented sportscaster self-destruct due to a combination of CARELESSNESS and EGO, but my “evil twin”, along with Internet trolls and professional comedians, are laughing at and are mocking Byington because in their eyes and ears, Byington has turned into “a gift that keeps on giving”.
