The broadcast team for the eighth edition of Warner Bros. Discovery Sports’ The Match franchise (featuring Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce against Steph Curry and Klay Thompson, on June 29) has been announced. And there are some intriguing new changes from the team that called the seventh version last December.
Last December, Brian Anderson hosted the broadcast, with Charles Barkley and Trevor Immelman serving as analysts and Kathryn Tappen serving as course reporter. This time around, Barkley, Immelman, and Tappen are back (for the seventh, sixth, and second times respectively), but Ernie Johnson will be hosting the broadcast (his third time doing so). And, perhaps most unusually, NBA star Draymond Green and NFL star Von Miller will be involved. Here’s more on that from that release:
Four-time NBA Champion and Inside the NBA analyst Draymond Green and two-time Super Bowl champion Von Miller will also be joining the team as special contributors, providing commentary while following the participants from a golf cart throughout the live competition, as well as additional content across Bleacher Report’s platforms.
The Bleacher Report mention is notable, as they’ve often done some significant shoulder programming and social content around The Match. And Miller already has his own The Voncast video interview series with Bleacher Report, and Green has been contributing to TNT’s NBA coverage, so they’re well-established parts of the WBD Sports family at this point. We’ll see what they bring to The Match.
[Warner Bros. Discovery Sports]
About Andrew Bucholtz
Andrew Bucholtz has been covering sports media for Awful Announcing since 2012. He is also a staff writer for The Comeback. His previous work includes time at Yahoo! Sports Canada and Black Press.