Sporting Announce New Broadcast Team

Sporting Kansas City announced their broadcast team for the 2017 season. Late in 2016 when Sporting announced their new affiliation with Fox Sports Kansas City they said that there would be changes to the broadcast team, out was color commentator, Andy Gruenebaum and sideline reporter/color commentator Jake Yadrich. The team announced yesterday that replacing the pair will be Matt Lawrence and Jillian Carroll.

Lawrence comes to Kansas City from England, where he had a successful playing career with the likes of Fulham, Millwall, and Crystal Palace as a defender. He captained Millwall in their 2004 FA Cup final loss to Manchester United. After his playing career, Lawrence eventually became color commentator for MLS games that showed on Sky Sports in the UK. His move to Kansas City will see him fill a similar position with Sporting, joining current play by play announcer Nate Bukaty on broadcasts.

Carroll has experience on the sideline with the KC Chiefs, the KC Comets, and FC Kansas City having spent time working with all three organizations. She also has experience herself in the game, playing soccer in college.

While for me personally I'll miss Yadrich on the broadcast, I thought he brought a lot of good insight to the game, I feel both of these additions are good for Sporting KC. My hope is that with Lawrence coming from outside Kansas City, he'll be a little more neutral in his color commentary as one of the things that has bugged me over the last few years has been Sporting's broadcast becoming more "homerish" in the tone of the broadcast. It was one of the reasons I enjoyed Callum Williams so much when he did the broadcasts, he was for Kansas City and you could tell in the broadcasts, but he wasn't afraid of praising the other team when the opponent did something good during the broadcast.