Sydney, February 10, 2005. (l-r) Steve Liebmann, Ken Sutcliffe and Ian Ross at Steve Liebmann's farewell party at the Intercontinental Hotel. Steve Liebmann co hosted Channel Nine's Today Show for twenty years, today was his last appearance on the popular morning show. AAP Image/Mick Tsikas
As a Generation Y sport lover, I’ve seen the faces of Bruce McAvaney and Ken Sutcliffe on television from day one. Both are great at what they do. They are like a brand in their own right.
The face of sport on Channel Seven versus the face of Sport on Channel Nine. A pepsi versus coke battle if you will.
But who do you prefer?
Bruce has the encyclopaedic knowledge of Melbourne Cups, Olympics and AFL. He is so passionate about sport, it sometimes borders on the ridiculous, which was so brilliantly portrayed by Billy Birminigham in his 12th Man impersonation of calling Cathy Freeman’s 400-metre triumph in Sydney.
Ken is more of a journalist, which means he stays pretty objective.
I’m just about to finish his book The Wide world of Ken Sutcliffe and in it he talks about all these amazing experiences: covering three Winter Olympics, several Commonwealth Games, the Masters at Augusta, Wimbledon and the Socceroos campaign in ’06, just to name a few.
I got the feeling, though, that these experiences don’t excite him in the way it does with Bruce, who has covered every Summer Olympics since 1980.
That reign will come to an end in three years, when Ken has his chance to cover London 2012 for Channel Nine.
Both have hosted popular sports shows in Wide World of Sports and Sportsworld. Both have interviewed some of the world’s greatest athletes.
Interestingly, Sutcliffe was critical of Ian Thorpe, Greg Norman, and Lleyton Hewitt (in the early days), who he said were difficult to interview because they always thought Ken had a hidden agenda in his questions.
His pet hate is when athletes, especially footballers, say ‘Youse all wrote us off, but we won,” because it paints all the media with the same brush and just sounds rude and arrogant.
I tend to agree.
And Ken offered the great example of Pat Rafter, who never said a bad word about anyone and was always so gracious in victory and defeat.
I’d say Ken is the better host. He keeps his emotions in check and never fails to deliver an efficient talk break with enough information. He doesn’t pretend to know everything and leaves the stats to the experts.
If you look at the way Sutcliffe covers sport, he looks for the unusual angle. He bemoans cliches and is not afraid to ask sports stars the tough questions, but in a friendly way.
McAvaney does on the odd occasions, but he is generally just so in awe of athletes that his questions are often just statements of praise.
Bruce has made the words ‘special’, ‘clever’ and, more recently, ‘delicious,’ his own in football commentary. AFL is his game, being born in Ferryden Park, South Australia.
Whereas the male model from Mudgee grew up with league on his mind. The only time that Ken gets nervous on camera is the final minutes leading up to Origin matches and the NRL Grand Final.
He has a 50 second intro in his mind, which he has to nail perfectly with the roar of the crowd around him.
Both men obviously do their research, but Bruce has the brain that we all want for trivia.
He soaks up information better than a Sham-wow. He could tell you who won the Hammer throw at the 1972 Munich Olympics and every Brownlow medalist.
He could probably even tell you what Gary Ablett Snr had for breakfast on Grand Final day 1989.
In the end, they’ve both been fantastic. I’d go with Bruce for commentary and drama and Ken for just telling it like it is.
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