Gus Johnson's three-city European tour rolls into Manchester, England, where the newbie Fox Soccer announcer will settle in behind the microphone to call Sunday's Manchester City-Chelsea Premier League match (8:30 a.m. Eastern).
Johnson, an announcer more familiar to college basketball and football fans, was recently anointed as Fox Soccer's lead announcer for the Champions League, F.A. Cup, Women's World Cup and the 2018 (Russia) and 2022 (Qatar) World Cups.
He is the first to acknowledge it has been a steep learning curve that shows no sign of abating after his first two stabs at the beautiful game: Champions League matches between Real Madrid and Manchester United, and Arsenal and Bayern Munich.
Johnson said the notices after his first two forays were generally positive. "The feedback has been really great, but friends are friends," he said in a telephone interview from London. "Your mom always tells you you did a great job, you need your dad to tell you you screwed up." He also dismissed the notion the he was playing it safe.
"I don't see it like that," he said. "I'm a professional broadcaster. I go with how I'm feeling. I go with flow of the match. I'm not sitting back and hiding. I do understand in soccer it is a different pace than in American football or basketball. You can allow the game to breathe, especially when the ball is between the 18s."
The first leg of the Round of 16 series in Madrid on Feb. 13 was the most-watched UEFA Champions League match and the most-watched weekday afternoon telecast in network history, according to Nielsen Media Research. According to Nielsen, the telecast averaged 451,000 total viewers on Fox Soccer, a 258 percent increase over 2012's Round of 16 average audience (126,000). The 2012 Champions League semifinal between Chelsea and Barcelona held the record as Fox Soccer's most-watched Champions League game and weekday afternoon telecast (425,000 total viewers). Combined with Fox Deportes, the match averaged 1.15 million viewers, and together attracted a total audience of 1.97 million watching all or part of the game.
"The passion [in Madrid] was something I've never seen," Johnson said. "I've called games in front of 85,000-90,000 fans at the Rose Bowl but never experienced this kind of passion. The singing and chanting, the beating of drums, hanging on every touch of the ball. The fans, on a consistent basis, act as third commentator so you can allow the game to breathe because of the fans."
Now Johnson is off the continental soccer beat and into the cauldron of a heated domestic league game. It is a different challenge, but one he said he is ready and eager for.
"The whole endeavor is a challenge," he said. "Learning this from scratch and trying to call these games professionally and proficiently, that's the biggest one. I'm on foreign soil in sport I didn't grow up watching and having the pressure of delivering a solid broadcast in front of an audience that lives and dies by it. I feel good about how I've fared after two games. I continue to learn and work my craft."
Two earlier posts on the Goal blog elicited more than 150 comments from readers — some good, some bad, some ambivalent. For better or worse, Johnson is going to be Fox's soccer voice for many years to come. Can you live with that? Has he done an acceptable job so far? What more would you like him to do in future telecasts? Some commenters said they want more analysis from their lead announcer. Do you? Or is that the job of the color guy? The "phone" lines are now open. Dish.
Follow Jack Bell on Twitter.
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