The 3rd and final stop of the 2019 FINA Champions Series in Indianapolis, Indiana, United States will take place this weekend on Friday and Saturday evening. The meet will be held at the IUPUI Natatorium: the largest full-time natatorium (by spectator seating) in the United States, and one of the largest in the world.
Missy Franklin will be back in the ‘color’ chair for the U.S. broadcast on the NBC Sports Network (Friday) and the Olympic Channel (Saturday). She’ll be paired with Jason Knapp for the event.
This is Franklin’s 2nd shot at this gig: she also worked the meet for the series’ opening stop in Guangzhou, China, then sitting as analyst alongside Steve Schlanger. In the 2nd stop, her fellow Cal alumnus Natalie Coughlin served as analyst with Patrick Kinas. Now Franklin is back in the ‘hot seat.’
Her partner for Indy Jason Knapp has worked just about every sport on record, including wrestling, shooting, and archery at the 2012 Summer Olympics, curling during the 2014 Winter Olympics, and wrestling and beach volleyball at the 2016 Summer Olympics. His biggest swimming presence came at the 2016 Paralympic Games, where he was the play-by-play commentator for swimming.
Television Schedule:
- Day 1: Friday, May 31st, 7PM Eastern Time on NBCSN. USALIVE STREAM: NBCSports.com/NBC Sports App
- Day 2: Saturday, June 1st, 7PM Eastern Time on Olympic Channel: Home of Team. USA LIVE STREAM: NBCSports.com, the NBC Sports App, and OlympicChannel.com
The 24-year old Franklin, who announced her retirement earlier this year, is a 5-time Olympic gold medalist and an 11-time World Champion in swimming.
Missy Franklin is excellent FINA Analyst! She is enthusiastic knowledgeable and has sunny warmth in her voice.
01.00 am CEST, it’s not the best. I really don’t know if it is too late or too early.
and Tokyo will not much better either
It’s harder than it seems (speaking from experience). Missy has fantastic energy and great enthusiasm for the sport, let’s give her some time to develop before we render judgement.
I guess Beisel was busy this weekend?
Tony Romo must not have been available.
I thought Elizabeth Beisel did awesome covering ACCs w Rowdy
Good for her, but being completely honest I hope that she greatly improves upon last time. Her commentating almost made me miss Rowdy.
Most of the time when Missy talks it just a bunch of cliches. She kept saying “Absolutely” over and over.
Natalie was better than Missy. She made some interesting technical comments on what the swimmers were doing in the water and how the race was developing.
Ariana Kukors was one of the best as a commentator on the early renditions of DeckPass Live. Personable, whitty and knew her swimming.
I agree with you about Natalie, but the comparison is not fair. For Franklin it was the first try, Natalie has had already such an experience. Let’s see if Franklin improves.
That’s a fair point. I thought that Missy might have done some preparation so she didn’t sound like she was just winging it with her usual cliches.
Natalie was better but I wanted her to be superior by open water, so this wouldn’t even be a discussion. Instead I sensed it was close enough that the networks would butcher the decision in favor of the giggly bigger name
Actually I like Rowdy. Among the assistants so far I liked Nicole Livingstone the most, but she is Australia