American dopers, help a poor Brit to understand: Why do the commentary teams for American Football games not sit down? In the UK, Sky shows games covered by Fox, NBC, and CBS and they all seem to be the same – when we see the commentators, there they are standing up with their microphones.
Given the length of American Football games, don’t they get tired? After all, John Madden must be getting on a bit now 
Good question and one I hadn’t noticed until you mentioned it. When I was a kid in the 70s, I seem to remember them sitting at a desk overlooking the field. Standing would give you a better view of the field, though.
It’s possible that they only stand up during those shots. I’m sure that they see a lot of the game on monitors.
I’m sure your right, it’s hard to imagine Madden standing that long isn’t it? One reason might be that when they do shots of them standing from in the booth, you can easily see the field over their shoulder instead of the section of the stands directly across from the broadcast booth.
The shots I’m thinking are during play and they are generally standing in front of a back drop, apparently looking passed the camera towards the field of play. It could be they are just standing up when there is a time-out or some other break but I’m not sure why they would do that.
Cricket commentators – who I always think have a similar role: long game, many pauses, lots of stats 
– are always seen sitting at a desk looking out over the pitch when they do a piece to camera.
Believe me, there are a lot of Americans wondering about this, too. The “standing announcers” shot seems to have taken pro football by storm.
I suspect that the reason is that present-day announcers sit fairly far apart with large monitors and statistical displays in front of them. If you want to get a shot of them together, earnestly discussing the game, they almost have to get up and step away from their ordinary “broadcast position”.
I had occasion to see the inside of the press box at the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans back in about, oh, 1994. (I paid for the tour of the stadium).
The press box was surprisingly low-tech. There was a table, which to me looked like it wouldn’t have been out of place in a church basement, with about a dozen chairs behind it (padded folding chairs, IIRC), and a phone at each position.
Undoubtedly things have changed since then, but my WAG is that the commentators sit during the game and stand when the booth wants a shot of them discussing something.
I’ve been in the announcers booth at several stadiums, and HeyHomie is right. There are banks of monitors in front of the announcers, so that they can look at replays (and live feed) while watching the field. If they tried to take a live shot of the guys sitting, you’d just see the top of their heads. That’s what they used to show, and you can see examples of that from MNF on recent highlights packages.
The booths are very small, and in practice, most of them use a chroma key background that’s off to one side, so that the announcers can stand up and a background shot of the stadium appears behind them. This is the opening shot on most telecasts. There simply isn’t enough room in the booth to stand with their backs to the crowd, and if there was, the picture would be cluttered by all of their equipment and by the yahoos in the stands.
You’ll also notice that usually during these shots, the announcers have removed their headsets and put on their blazers.
Following up on my own post, here’s a picture someone took from the stands of the Monday Night Football broadcasting booth.
Many thanks for all the replies I’m reassured that John Madden doesn’t have to stand for four hours!
Just a thought:
I worked peripherally around the radio broadcasting biz in the early 90’s. All of the DJs working in any sort of a “high energy” music format worked standing up…at least the ones I saw. I asked about that. The idea was that it tended to impart more energy or “punch” into the broadcast. The only DJs I saw working from a chair were doing country/western and classical music.
I don’t know if there is any actual research to support this, however I did use this concept once when we were doing a video for my company, and the girl who was narrating was judged to be using too much of a mono-tone. I had her stand on the balls of her feet while she read, and it really did help.
They stand up because Brett Favre ordered them to. No commentator dares go against the wishes of The One True Favre, lest a punishment of fire and sulfur rain down from the heavens.
If I were the emperor of the universe, the announcers could stay seated all the time, because I would make it illegal to ever point a camera at them. Why do the producers of these broadcasts think we want to look at the announcers? Yep, things would be a bit different around here if I was in charge. :mad:
OK…why do they have to wear those 747-pilot-like headsets and hold those super sized microphones in front of their faces? This goes for all American sports - baseball, NASCAR etc. Even Ice Skating commentators have them. It looks stupid (IMO of course).
I know it’s loud but I play in a band and we have in-ear monitors that go in the ear canal.
As for the microphones, is it simply so their hands have something to do? Why don’t Matt Lauer, Diane Sawyer or Bill O’Reilly have to hold one of those monster things?
Is it ‘expected’ in televised sports?
I think football announcers stand because they get a better view. Pat Summerall was one of the first announcers to stand for the whole game. I think John Madden stands up because he’s a nervous sort who likes to walk around while he talks.
Not all announcers use big headsets and mikes. Gary Thorne of ESPN/ABC uses a microphone on a stand. Other guys do as well.
That shot above appears to have no glass between Al Michaels and the monitors. They
really don’t expect him to sit there and freeze for four hours at (say) Philadelphia, do they?
All British sports commentators I’ve seen use in-ear earpieces but hold a large hand held microphone. See picture of the great 
John Motson on the BBC
I always assumed this was to avoid the viewers overhearing asides between the commentry team.
Thanks for the interesting question, and welcome to the SDMB.
As another data point - on last nights Monday Night game, the ESPN booth crew was interviewing Sylvester Stallone during the 2nd quarter. All 4 were sitting down.
That’s because Rocky has a big fight on December 20.