Sports are one of the greatest forms of entertainment out there, and sportscasters can help make a broadcast or TV show easier to follow as opposed to a production that the public would tune out. A great sportscaster is easy to spot. He or she is someone who makes watching sports even more entertaining, and this can be done through the sportscaster’s love of the game, humor, and how they connect with the audience. When watching these sports casters you want to watch someone who you could have a personal sports conversation with like you would have at a barbershop.

Not all men and women in the profession bring joy to us, and there are fair share of sportscasters that are really annoying to have to deal with whenever they come on our TV sets. Most of these sportscasters are more popular for being hated than they are for any good work that they do in the entertainment industry. Some of them are dull and seem empty of any joy for the sports that they are supposed to be covering, and others only have a job because of the lineage that has come before them.

Here are 10 Sportscasters that people can’t stand and 5 that people love:

15 15. Annoying: Colin Cowherd

Colin Cowherd has been a syndicated radio host with ESPN and now Fox Sports for over a decade, but that doesn’t mean that he hasn’t said and done some controversial things in the past. Some of the worst sportscasters are the ones that say such outlandish things just to get people to tune in. Cowherd is guilty of doing this when he makes statements about LeBron James by far being the greatest player to ever play basketball, even though this is not a popular stance among a large majority.

ESPN fired Cowherd in 2015 because of comments he made belittling baseball players from the Dominican Republic’s academics. Luckily Cowherd was picked up by Fox Sports to continue his hit Radio show “The Herd,” but many wished this wrong doing would be the end of the line for him.

14 14. Love: Cari Champion

Cari Champion has a great story which includes her rising up the ranks of being a reporter in West Virginia to now being an anchor on Sportscenter. Champion since joining ESPN has always seemed to enjoy what she is doing, and her frequent smiles and bubbly personality reflect this to the audience. Champion was first seen on ESPN when she got the position of moderator on the hit show First Take. It is not easy to mediate two guys in Skip Bayless and Stephen A. Smith who think they are larger than life, but Champion did an excellent job in a role that she was pretty unfamiliar with. Champion most definitely earned a shot at becoming an anchor on Sportscenter after doing a great job on First Take.

13 13. Hate: Joe Buck

Joe Buck seems to be the poster boy of hated play by play announcer of any sport, and it seems like much more people dislike Buck than like him. His father Jack Buck was essentially his ticket into the profession after Jack had such a long and successful broadcasting career with the St. Louis Cardinals. Buck has received his fair share of criticism throughout his career, and one of the most stated ones is that he tends to play favorites a lot in what is supposed to be a bipartisan national broadcast. Sports casters are also supposed to be more engage in the sporting world than most. Buck admitted on a radio show that he spends very few time covering sports outside of his own broadcasts, and this is ridiculous considering that is what he gets paid to do.

12 12. Love: Al Michaels

Al Michaels is one of the most legendary broadcasters that’s in the business, and the spotlight is still on him while broadcasting the biggest football games of each and every week on Sunday Night Football alongside Cris Collinsworth. One of the most historic sporting events in America’s history was called by Michaels when he called the “Miracle on Ice.” He shouted the famous line as the game was ending “do you believe in miracles, yes!” He has been an active broadcaster since 1964, and the familiarity of his voice brings comfort to most while they are enjoying a game of football before they get their work week started Monday morning. He has also worked the famous earthquake-interrupted Game 3 of the 1989 World Series to go along with numerous Winter and Summer Olympics during his illustrious career.

11 11. Hate: Cris Collinsworth

Chris Collinsworth has somehow won 15 Sports Emmy Awards, which is shocking because of how tough it is to sit through a broadcast that he is working. Sunday Night Football is typically the best football game of the week. This makes the ratings for the production of this game high solely based on the great competition that is about to take place between two football teams. Collinsworth can be very annoying to listen to merely based on the fact that he seemingly says the most obvious things that even the most novice football fan would think to be common sense, and it in a way can be seen as dumbing down the game of football for the audience. It is obvious that Al Michaels carries the Sunday Night Football broadcast team.

10 10. Love: Dick Vitale

Many people either hate Dick Vitale or love the man, but it is apparent whenever he steps into a college basketball arena the young adults go crazy with admiration for the man who has been covering the sport for decades. Vitale has done so much for the game of basketball from an entertainment standpoint. He keeps the fans excited no matter how noncompetitive the game being played is, and he has ridden the enthusiasm he provides all the way to the basketball hall of fame. Vitale called the first college basketball game that ever aired on ESPN in 1979, in a game that featured DePaul vs. Wisconsin.

Almost 40 years later and he still gets the casual fan pumped for any game that he is a part of the broadcast, and he has been bestowed with numerous honors for his contribution to the game of basketball.

9 9. Hate: Michelle Beadle

Michelle Beadle has a fascinating back story, but let’s be honest the only reason she got into this profession is because her rich daddy got her an internship with the San Antonio Spurs. Beadle is now the host of SportsNation on ESPN. The show often times veers off of the subject of sports, and it is not at all a very serious sports show. It is entertaining but doesn’t really belong on ESPN. Although her main gig is not a serious sports show, ESPN tabbed Beadle to join the panel of the pre and post-game shows for the NBA Finals along with former NBA players such as Jalen Rose, Chauncey Billups, and Paul Pierce. She did not seem like she belonged on the set with such a serious sporting event taking place.

8 8. Love: Rachel Nichols

Rachel Nichols is not only appealing to the eye to many she is also great at her job. It isn’t easy being a woman in the mostly male dominated sports media, but Nichols has been able to thrive in numerous roles in sports media. Nichols has played the role of host of a show, sideline reporter, interviewer, and many other roles in the sports media world. She has received praise from Sports Illustrated which described her as “the country's most impactful and prominent female sports journalist.” Nichols mostly covers the NBA now, and hosts “The Jump” on ESPN covering all things NBA with numerous basketball personalities such as Tracy McGrady and others. Nichols is versatile in that she has covered hockey, football, and basketball. She is great at what she does, and does her job just as well if not better than the men who dominate the profession she is in.

7 7. Hate: Jemele Hill

Jemele Hill is a cohost of Sportscenter at 6:00pm eastern time alongside Michael Smith. What Sportscenter has turned into since she joined the show is a travesty, and many have shown their displeasure by tuning out. Instead of the usual highlights and sports talk that people have come to love they are subjected to pop culture topics such as TV shows, movies, and even political issues. People do not watch a sports channel to get this kind of coverage, and Hill and her cohost are directly responsible for this new direction. The ratings have been in decline ever since Hill joined Sportscenter. Hill has also been involved in her own controversy when she used Adolf Hitler and the Boston Celtics in the same analogy, and she also disrespected University of Kentucky basketball fans by saying they would love Charles Manson if he got the team wins.

6 6. Love: Scott Van Pelt

Scott Van Pelt has been a mainstay at ESPN since 2001, and it is a great thing that SVP still has a job after the numerous firings the company has made in recent months. SVP hosts Sportscenter on ESPN during the midnight hour eastern time. It is an injustice that his show is on so late, but he has never complained about his situation and has entertained fans on the midnight edition of Sportscenter since late 2015. His show has a lot of the witty segments that his radio show had which makes for a more enjoyable watch than other hours of Sportscenter. Golf is his main area of expertise, and he has covered big tournaments such as the Masters while working for ESPN. SVP also never shoves his agenda in your face, and seems like a nice guy who you could grab a beer with and talk sports with for hours.

5 5. Hate: Erin Andrews

Erin Andrews has been the most popular female sportscaster for much of the past decade. In addition to her reporting skills, she's gotten a lot of attention for her good looks. Many though, don't seem to like her interviewing style, claiming she comes across as cold and calculated and many feel that she has gotten more attention due to her projects outside of sports, such as appearing on Dancing With The Stars a few years ago. She's become a celebrity in her own right, so perhaps it just doesn't sit well with some people. In any event, Andrews is extremely successful, and with success tends to come a lot of haters. Andrews has made plenty of news the past couple of years, being awarded $55 million after a lawsuit against the Nashville Marriott.

4 4. Hate: Sean McDonough

Monday night football has been religiously watched for decades now, and a new era of Monday Night Football began last year when Mike Tirico left and Sean McDonough took his role on the broadcast team alongside John Gruden. The competition on Monday nights has been poor in recent years. Sunday night games are consistently more entertaining than Monday night games, and McDonough has been a dull new voice on the program. It also doesn’t help that McDonough has been more prone to commentate college basketball games in the past as opposed to NFL games. Replacing a fan favorite in Mike Tirico is a tough task, and Sean Mcdonough so far has not done a great job on Monday Night Football due to the visible poor chemistry between John Gruden and himself.

3 3. Hate: Stephen A. Smith

Stephen A. Smith at times can just be really annoying, and some of the ways he voices his opinions seem rehearsed at times. He will frequently go into fits on air if someone has an opinion that differs from his. He specifically has spoken negative towards the Dallas Cowboys, and he attributes this to having his heart broken by a girl at a young age that just happened to be a Cowboys fans. It was entertaining to see him get upset at Skip Bayless whose opinions are way out there. Now that he is the bigger of the two sports personalities on ESPN’s First Take it has become somewhat of a tired act, and it doesn’t help that some of his comments in the past have received negative backlash from viewers on a few occasions.

2 2. Hate: Max Kellerman

Max Kellerman made his name as a boxing commentator, and is now a co-host on ESPN’s first take. Kellerman had some big shoes to fill when Skip Bayless left the show for a more lucrative deal with FS1. From the looks of the ratings Kellerman has been unable to fill the void left by Bayless, and his sports knowledge is not up to par with even Stephen A Smith who is primarily a basketball guy. Kellerman and Stephen A. Smith do not have nearly as many disagreements as when Skip Bayless was on the show, and this causes the casual sports fan to change the channel. Kellerman also sometimes chooses to get political on air which doesn’t vibe well with the many viewers who tune into sports shows to get away from politics.

1 1. Hate: Skip Bayless

 

Skip Bayless is one of the most well-known commentators in the sports world, but he is mostly known for his borderline insane sports opinions that he has voiced on ESPN’s First Take and now FS1’s Undisputed. The Dallas Cowboys have always been his favorite team to discuss due to his loyalty to his favorite sports team. The Cowboys can do no wrong in his eyes, and this is irritating because many people despise the Cowboys. Bayless also has spoken very negatively of superstar NBA players such as Kevin Durant and LeBbron James in the past. He harshly critiques these two while praising the ground that Tim Tebow walks on, and in his opinion Tebow should still be a starting quarterback in the NFL “because all he does is win.” These are just a small portion of the strong opinions that make people think Skip Bayless is crazy.