Featured Image Credit: CBS Sports
Topics: Jamie Carragher, CBS Sports, Champions League
Matthew Holt
Jamie Carragher was forced into making one key change that changed the course of his career with CBS Sports.
Carragher, 46, has become a staple feature of the US show's UEFA Champions League coverage over the past few years.
Featuring alongside Kate Abdo, Thierry Henry and Micah Richards, the quartet have revolutionised TV punditry.
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Being able to switch between humour and a seriousness to focus on key issues within the game has drawn plenty of plaudits and UEFA recently extended their coverage deal with CBS until 2030 recently due to its popularity with fans.
But Carragher, an often outspoken scouser, was told he needed to make a significant change to his own punditry style to fit the needs of US audiences,
Pete Radovich, the coordinating producer of the show, recently told The Athletic that changes had to be made, with Carragher almost seeing the plug pulled on his role with the broadcaster.
“In the coaching world, a manager gets fired here and then suddenly they appear there," he began.
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"It’s just rotating and the wheel never changes. What I didn’t want for us to do was just bring in faces that have been on other networks over the years.
"It would have felt like every other show. Kate was the one exception and she was the first hire.
"I felt like she’d not cut through yet. Then it came down to Zoom calls — the story with Jamie Carragher was whether an American audience would understand him.
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“And within the first two minutes of the conversation, I had to say, ‘Listen, I’m going to cut to it. Can you dial back the Scouse? Because that’s the concern here. Because if it’s a problem, then really we shouldn’t waste our time here’.
"Jamie said, ‘Of course, that’s not a problem — I’ve done television for Danish TV where English is a second language and I’m forced to dial it back’.
"So those are the kind of conversations that we were having. We wanted to feel new.
"We wanted to feel like something that people had not seen before. And then they had to be willing to have fun at their own expense.”
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Carragher has continued in his other punditry roles, featuring heavily on Sky Sports in the UK since his retirement.
He has also drawn up a close working relationship with Gary Neville, with the pair having had a major impact on modern-day pundity.