BY LOREN BRANCH

Broadcasters pronouncing a name incorrectly is a pet peeve of mine. Some names are hard to figure out, but, regardless, it is still unacceptable for announcers to mispronounce names on national TV. There is no reason why they can’t find out the correct way to say a player’s name from one of the other hundreds of people working the game.

A recent occurrence of this was during a quarterfinal game of the Puerto Rico Tip-Off (College Basketball) between Akron and Oklahoma State. Akron’s starting point guard, Alex Abreu, is a Puerto Rico native. On multiple occasions, the announcers pronounced his last name as Abreo instead of Abreu.  

I questioned why they struggled to correctly pronounce his name and came up with one potential reason. The two announcers for this game were former Wake Forest men’s basketball coach Dino Gaudio and ESPN announcer Doug Sherman. Because I’m not 100 percent sure which one of them were saying the name incorrectly, I came to the conclusion it was Gaudio due to inexperience as an announcer. I figured because Sherman is a professional he would not have a problem pronouncing players’ names. 

There is no guarantee my theory is correct, but at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter. It is not acceptable for announcers to pronounce names incorrectly.