How to Become a Sportscaster

culled from:wikihow.com

A sportscaster is responsible for providing pregame analysis, play-by-play commentary and post-game analysis of games and interviewing athletes. Generally, a sportscaster is covers 1 sports team or different sports and may travel around the country to cover games. You should know how to become a sportscaster if you're interested in combining sports with a career in journalism. You should take journalism,speech, debate, and fundamentals of acting in high school.

Steps

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Prepare for a sportscaster career.

• Decide what area of sports and broadcasting you want to pursue. For example, you can specialize in covering baseball, basketball, soccer, football or volleyball games. Also, you can work in television, radio or on the Internet.
• If you're in high school, start working on your journalism skills. You can work at your high school newspaper as a sports reporter to familiarize yourself with sports terminology.

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   Obtain a college degree. Becoming a sportscaster requires a 4-year degree.
   • Research the schools you're interested in attending. You can pick journalism schools with sports journalism or broadcast journalism programs. You can also pick colleges and universities with journalism-related majors such as communications, mass media or English.
   • Attend the post secondary institution of your choice.
   • Take core, also called major, requirements. Core courses vary depending on the program you're enrolled in. However, they typically include introductory journalism courses, sports communication, broadcast journalism, media ethics and journalism writing.
   • You must take general education courses, such as math and electives, to graduate. Electives, also called free electives, are classes that you're not required to take. You may want to take classes that can help you with your sportscaster career such as courses in business.
   • Complete a sports broadcast internship. An internship is typically required to gain practical experience. You can obtain an internship on your own or with the help of your adviser. Generally, internships are for 1 quarter, semester or summer. Although internships may pay, they typically are for college credit.
   • Build a demo tape with the help of your adviser or a sports broadcast professional. The demo tape should be audio or video clips of work done during your internship or college television broadcasts.
   • Work at your college newspaper or television station. Working at a newspaper allows you to improve your writing skills.
   • Join college and professional journalism and sports broadcast journalism organizations or groups. Joining these organizations allow you to network with other sports journalists.
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   Advance to a sportscaster job.
   • You can find a job through networking, with the help of an adviser or by searching employment classifieds.
   • Work at a small television or radio station.
   • Work in sports journalism-related positions at larger radio or television stations until you obtain an on-air sportscaster position.