Clive Tyldesley - The Art of Communicating

What does it mean to be a great communicator in sport? We sat down with one of the very best commentators in sport, Clive Tyldesley, to discuss the responsibility of being a commentator but also how to be a great communicator to a mass audience.

Diversity, Inclusion & Engagement:

‘Inclusion and engagement is the secret of good communication’ says Clive. This was one of the many valuable insights we gained as we spoke with Clive for an hour. First of all, Clive brought attention to the importance of diversity when communicating:

‘We talk a lot about that word in broadcasting and the clue is in the name, broad casting. you are communicating to a mass audience, a wide audience. The diversity is in part ethnic, in part gender, in part age, but the biggest diversity you get when you have that size of an audience as opposed to a premier league audience is the number of people who are only watching 4-5 games a year’.

Clive mentioned how England games typically peak in excess of 20 million viewers, compared to approximately 3 million viewers for a Manchester United v Liverpool Super Sunday clash, and this really puts into perspective the importance of addressing diversity and engagement when the scale of viewership is so staggeringly high.

‘That premier league audience are probably watching their 53rd game of the season, so as a communicator part of the test is how much knowledge you assume. You don’t want to be that maths teacher who shuts off half the class where the back row have been sitting there for half an hour and haven’t heard a word you’ve said but are too afraid to put their hand up, so they're completely disengaged’.

Clive made a great example of this by referring to his late mentor, who suggested that he should explain the offside law to the viewers when reaching England’s heights of 20 million viewers. Clive compounded this point further by saying that one of the challenges of being a great communicator is how much knowledge you should assume from your audience, and this puts into perspective the value of explaining the offside rule to a mass audience so that you don’t become that maths teacher who has lost the attention of half the class.

Emotion & Creating Memories:

Clive would go on to speak further about the lessons his mentor provided: ‘Your starting point as a communicator is to identify your audience and broadcast to them. So when a large portion of your audience is strongly committed to the prospect of an England victory, you almost have to ride the wave of their emotion a little bit and reflect that’.

‘You owe it to your audience, because they are the king and queen of this, you owe it to them to go with the flow with the emotion of what’s happening. But all of that then relates to the manager of the day, the players of the day, because we are all going through this same, unique experience of covering a football team that millions of people feel differently about than any other football team. With that comes the weight of the jersey, with that comes the worry lines of the manager, and with that comes some of the predicaments that the commentator faces when covering England, it’s not like anything else’.

Clive began to expand further on the role of emotion and memories and how important this can be in commentary:

‘The greatest sense of fulfilment you can get in our job is when a fan comes up to you and says you words were part of my memory of a particular game, because football is about memories, it’s about moments’. This is especially true with Clive, who could forget the infamous commentary of the 1999 Champions League final: ‘Sheringham, and Solskjaer has won it!’ Or how about the numerous times of hearing ‘Rooney!’ through our TV screens as Rooney scored important goals for England.

‘It’s lived in the moment and I think the commentary should be judged in the moment. It’s like the number 1 single of the day or the most popular movie of the year. When we watch them again in 5, 10, 15 years time and they don’t quite resonate quite as your memory suggests that they do, but that’s because the very best kind of entertainment belongs in its moment and how it affects its audience at that time. So these football memories that are created, good and bad, are huge staging points of our life. We do remember where we were when you saw a particular football match.

Then part of the thrill of watching live sport is that the thrill ride that hopefully you are about to engage on, and the commentator has got to hold on and take that ride along with the players and the fans but he or she has got to find some words that speak for everybody, and may just become a part of everybody's memory’.

The Role of the Co-Commentator:

Clive also shared some insights into the role of the co-commentary, referencing to Jamie Carragher’s well known ‘Salah you little dancer’ commentary as Liverpool took a convincing lead at the top of the Premier League following a victory against Man Utd in 2020:

‘I think the co-commentator has to find that balance in the same way that the commentator has, whereas we are trained broadcast journalists who have done nothing else our whole lives, the co-commentator is invariably relatively new to the art of communication and so that becomes a bit of a challenge for them.

A development in modern television, and Jamie and Gary are the classic examples of that, nobody is trying to hide from the fact that Gary wants Manchester United to win and Jamie wants Liverpool to win, and because we know there’s a friendship there and a partnership, it becomes a nice bit of television theatre. But, as I write in the book, and Jamie is a good friend and a really good operator that I really admire, but I wasn’t happy with Mo Salah you little dancer, because I don’t think that’s necessary at that moment. I don’t think that captures the moment for your wider audience. It captures it for him, and a few hundred thousand Liverpool fans, but I think there’s some lines you need to draw in the sand and I think that steps over that line’.

We thoroughly enjoyed Clive’s insights into the art of communicating as a sports commentator. Be sure to look out for The Lions Under The Arch Podcast so you can watch the entire interview where Clive speaks on various topics such as Gareth Southgate, Commentary, and more.

Thanks for reading!