Univision Communications announced that popular sportscasters Jorge Ottati and Diego Balado will join the network’s seasoned team of World Cup commentators for its broadcast of the 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa.
With the addition of Ottati and Balado, the network rounds out its expert team of commentators which also includes Pablo Ramírez, Jesús Bracamontes, Jorge Pérez Navarro, and José Luis Chilavert. Both sportscasters will offer their expertise and knowledge on multiple of this year’s World Cup games and also participate throughout the entire tournament as valuable contributors to the network’s World Cup broadcast. In addition, Fernando Fiore will be returning once again to host all the pre- and post-game shows. The 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa will begin airing Friday, June 11th at 8am Eastern/7am Central/5am Pacific, live on Univision and streaming on www.UnivisionFutbol.com.
“We’re very happy to have Jorge Ottati and Diego Balado join our team of World Cup commentators,” said Alina Falcón, president of News, Univision Communications Inc. “We truly have a solid team of experts whose combined experience offering commentary and analysis on some of the world’s most popular sporting events will give our viewers the most comprehensive and passionate World Cup experience bar none.”
As co-host of TeleFutura’s “Contacto Deportivo” (Sports Encounter), Ottati is a versatile sports commentator who has covered a wide variety of sporting events including the CONCACAF Champions League and SuperLiga tournaments, as well as FIFA’s Futsal and Beach Soccer World Cups. Diego Balado joined the Univision family in 2006 as sports commentator for the network’s Major League Soccer and Fútbol Liga Mexicana broadcasts. Throughout his career, Balado has covered multiple international soccer tournaments including the last three World Cups from France (1998), Korea/Japan (2002) and Germany (2006), as well as the UEFA’s Champions’ League, the Spanish soccer league tournaments, and FIFA’s Gold Cup, among others.
With the addition of Ottati and Balado, Univision’s World Cup team has by far the greatest expertise covering World Cup events in television today. This will be Pablo Ramírez’ sixth World Cup, Jesús Bracamontes’ fourth, the third for Jorge Pérez Navarro and Jorge Ottati, and second for José Luis Chilavert who is also a former World Cup player himself. Now in his eleventh year as “president” of Univision’s “República Deportiva” (Sports Republic), this will be Fernando Fiore’s fifth World Cup event.
As previously announced, Univision will broadcast all games live and in high definition (HD) across every time zone in the country. The network’s broadcast will also be available via live streaming on www.UnivisionFutbol.com. For the first time ever Univision will also make all games available on the Univision On Demand platform the very next morning after they air live (Available free of charge to subscribers On Demand on various cable distributors. Some distributors will offer games in high definition).
(Source: Univision)
