If you followed international soccer star Lionel Messi’s rampage through the Leagues Cup on Apple TV, you heard each of his goals called emphatically by Jake Zivin, an Evanston native and a graduate of Evanston Township High School.
“Messiiiiiiiiii!” Zivin exclaimed after the new Inter Miami star’s first goal, a last-minute, game-winning free kick in his first game. “Could it have been any other way?! Magnificent!”
Zivin shouted Messi’s name nine more times over the next six games, making his voice the soundtrack to the Argentinian’s first foray through the States.
“It’s a huge responsibility. It’s a big honor, it’s a privilege,” Zivin, 38, said. “I tried, especially going into the first game, knowing how big of a moment that would be for soccer in our country and how that would be a game that would be replayed over and over again if he scored a goal.”
As the lead play-by-play voice alongside analyst Taylor Twellman on Apple TV’s MLS Season Pass, Zivin figures to call more of Messi’s goals. He and Twellman will be in the booth Saturday for Inter Miami’s game at the New York Red Bulls, and Zivin would love to come home and call Messi’s game against the Fire on Oct. 4 at Soldier Field. Zivin now lives in Portland, Oregon; his parents are still in Evanston.
That’s where Zivin grew up as a die-hard Fire fan. His favorite sport was soccer, but he and his twin brother, Sam, didn’t make the high school team as sophomores. So the next year, they found another way to get involved: They broadcast the games.
“We realized our high school is producing this. Why don’t we try to do it?” said Zivin, who counts Dave Eanet, Pat Hughes and Wayne Larrivee among his influences. “It was really fun. Having that experience, I realized I really love this; this is what I want to do.”
A self-described “math nerd,” Zivin attended Carleton College, a small liberal-arts school in Northfield, Minnesota. It didn’t have a broadcasting program, so as a freshman, Zivin inquired with the athletic department about calling games.
“I called pretty much every Carleton sport for four years,” he said. “Football was on a local station; they had a radio deal. But everything else I was able to call – soccer, basketball, baseball, softball, volleyball. Despite not getting a formal education in it, I was able to get so much experience.”
An internship in the MLS broadcasting department led to a job as the score-bug operator for ABC/ESPN broadcasts on Saturdays during college. He’d fly out of Minneapolis on Fridays to wherever the game was and return Sundays, completing homework on the plane. The job gave him a crash course in TV.
After stints at TV stations in Butte and Missoula, Montana, and Eugene, Oregon, Zivin was recommended for the Portland Timbers’ vacant radio job in 2014 by then-MLS broadcasting executive Larry Tiscornia, who oversaw Zivin’s internship eight years earlier. In 2016, Zivin moved to Timbers TV.
Zivin, who also has called several soccer circuits for ESPN and FOX, added Apple TV to his resume when the company took over all MLS broadcasts this season.
“I do believe that what we’re doing with MLS and Apple TV is the future of sports broadcasting,” Zivin said. “It feels like we’re trail blazing, and it’s very exciting, and it’s an honor to be a part of it.”
Remote patrol
- Noah Eagle will fill in for Jac Collinsworth alongside Jason Garrett on NBC’s broadcast of Notre Dame-Navy on Saturday in Dublin. Collinsworth is ill and unable to travel.
- Kevin Kugler and analyst Tom Verducci will call the Cubs-Pirates game Saturday night on FOX.
- Season 9 of George Ofman’s podcast, “Tell Me A Story I Don’t Know,” begins Tuesday. Guests include Tom Waddle, Judd Sirott, Jim Deshaies and Chris Collins.
