Derek Rae (born 1967) is a Scottish

association football Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

commentator and presenter who currently works for

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). Th ...

and ABC in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

for the English-language coverages of

Bundesliga The Bundesliga (; ), sometimes referred to as the Fußball-Bundesliga () or 1. Bundesliga (), is a professional association football league in Germany. At the top of the German football league system, the Bundesliga is Germany's primary footba ...

DFB Pokal The DFB-Pokal ( is a German knockout football cup competition held annually by the German Football Association (DFB). Sixty-four teams participate in the competition, including all clubs from the Bundesliga and the 2. Bundesliga. It is considered ...

, and

La Liga The Campeonato Nacional de Liga de Primera División, commonly known simply as Primera División in Spain, and as La Liga in English-speaking countries and officially as LaLiga Santander for sponsorship reasons, stylized as LaLiga, is the men' ...

and

Deutsche Fußball Liga The DFL Deutsche Fußball Liga GmbH, or simply Deutsche Fußball Liga ("German Football League"), and often shortened to DFL, is a wholly owned subsidiary of ''Die Liga – Fußballverband''. The DFL is responsible for entire operating business o ...

for the English-language world feed. He is also an ambassador for

Berwick Rangers Berwick Rangers Football Club is a football team based in the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, England, just south of the border with Scotland. Founded in 1881, they currently play in the , the fifth tier of Scottish football, despite hailing fr ...

Early life and education

Rae grew up in

Aberdeen Aberdeen (; sco, Aiberdeen ; gd, Obar Dheathain ; la, Aberdonia) is a city in North East Scotland, and is the third most populous city in the country. Aberdeen is one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas (as Aberdeen City), and ...

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...

. During his youth, he attended football matches with a tape recorder to work on his commentary. At the age of 15, he began his professional broadcasting career calling games for a radio station that broadcast to local hospitals. In 1986,

BBC Radio Scotland BBC Radio Scotland is a Scotland, Scottish radio station, radio network owned and operated by BBC Scotland, a division of the BBC. It broadcasts a wide variety of programmes. It replaced the Scottish BBC Radio 4 opt-out service of the same na ...

announcer

David Francey David Francey (born 1954) is a Canadian folk singer-songwriter. He is the recipient of three Juno Awards and three Canadian Folk Music Awards. Early life Francey was born in Ayrshire, Scotland. He immigrated to Canada with his family at age 12. ...

suffered a knee injury and Rae, a 19-year-old student at the

University of Aberdeen , mottoeng = The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom , established = , type = Public research universityAncient university , endowment = £58.4 million (2021) , budget ...

who had sent the BBC a copy of his radio work, substituted for him on the commentary of a

Scottish Premier Division The Scottish Football League Premier Division was, from 1975 until 1998, the top division of the Scottish Football League and the entire Scottish football league system. It lay above the Scottish Football League First, Second and (from 1994) ...

game between Kilmarnock F.C. and Dumbarton F.C. The station was impressed and hired Rae to commentate on the

Rous Cup The Rous Cup was a short-lived football competition in the second half of the 1980s, contested between England, Scotland and, in later years, a guest team from South America. Overview The Rous Cup arose from the ashes of the British Home Cha ...

match between

rivals A rivalry is the state of two people or groups engaging in a lasting competitive relationship. Rivalry is the "against each other" spirit between two competing sides. The relationship itself may also be called "a rivalry", and each participant ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

and

the following week. He remained with the BBC as its Scotland football correspondent, regularly commentating on Scottish Premier League and Scotland matches, a job he held for five years. Rae was the 1987 British Sports Broadcaster of the Year.

Career

Rae moved to the United States in anticipation of the

1994 FIFA World Cup The 1994 FIFA World Cup was the 15th FIFA World Cup, the world championship for men's national soccer teams. It was hosted by the United States and took place from June 17 to July 17, 1994, at nine venues across the country. The United States ...

. FIFA hired him as a press officer and he oversaw the World Cup games that were held at

Foxboro Stadium Foxboro Stadium, originally Schaefer Stadium and later Sullivan Stadium, was an outdoor stadium in the New England region of the United States, located in Foxborough, Massachusetts. It opened in 1971 and served as the home of the New England ...

. Rae met his wife Beth Powers while working on World Cup preparations and the two would later settle in Beverly, Massachusetts. Rae called Major League Soccer games for the

New England Revolution The New England Revolution is an American professional soccer club based in the Greater Boston area that competes in Major League Soccer (MLS), in the Eastern Conference of the league. It is one of the ten charter clubs of MLS, having compe ...

from 1996 to 1999 and again in 2001, for the MetroStars in 2000 and the

Los Angeles Galaxy LA Galaxy, also known as the Los Angeles Galaxy, are an American professional soccer club based in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. The Galaxy competes in Major League Soccer (MLS), as a member of the Western Conference. The club began pla ...

in 1996. After the World Cup, Rae joined

ESPN International ESPN International is a family of sportscasting and production networks around the world. It was begun in 1989, is operated by ESPN Inc. and owned by The Walt Disney Company. Operating regions Latin America Spanish-speaking countries * ES ...

, where he called

Eredivisie The Eredivisie (; ''"Honour Division"'' or ''"Premier Division"'') is the highest level of professional football in the Netherlands. The league was founded in 1956, two years after the start of professional football in the Netherlands. It is c ...

and Campeonato Brasileiro Série A games. His role later expanded to calling more than 150 games a year and hosting a weekly studio-based football discussion show, PressPass. He also writes a column called "Rae's Say" for ESPNsoccernet. Rae is fluent in German and dabbles in several other languages. Rae has been known to call consulates to confirm that he has the correct pronunciation of a player's name. In August 2009, Rae began splitting his time between the States and Scotland after being hired as lead commentator for Scottish Premier League matches on the UK version of

. In June 2010, he was in South Africa to commentate on 12 matches at the

2010 FIFA World Cup , image = 2010 FIFA World Cup.svg , size = 200px , caption = ''Ke Nako. (Tswana and Sotho for "It's time") Celebrate Africa's Humanity'It's time. Celebrate Africa's Humanity'' (English)''Dis tyd. Vier Afrika se mensd ...

finals for ESPN USA partnered by

Robbie Mustoe Robin "Robbie" Mustoe (born 28 August 1968) is an English retired footballer who now works as a commentator for NBC Sports. He made nearly 500 appearances in the Football League and Premier League, playing as a defensive midfielder for Oxford U ...

and

Ally McCoist Alistair Murdoch McCoist, (; born 24 September 1962) is a Scottish former footballer who has since worked as a manager and TV pundit. McCoist began his playing career with Scottish club St Johnstone before moving to English side Sunderland in ...

. In the summer of 2010 it was announced that Rae would be making the move back to the UK to continue commentating on a wider basis for ESPN's London-based channel. In July 2013, Rae was confirmed as one of the lead voices on the new

BT Sport BT Sport is a group of pay television sports channels in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Owned by Warner Bros. Discovery Sports Europe and BT Group, they first launched on 1 August 2013. The channels are based at the former International Bro ...

channels. He commentated every week on the

SPFL The Scottish Professional Football League (SPFL) is the national men's association football league in Scotland. The league was formed in June 2013 following a merger between the Scottish Premier League and the Scottish Football League. As we ...

as well as the

Europa League The UEFA Europa League (abbreviated as UEL, or sometimes, UEFA EL), formerly the UEFA Cup, is an annual football club competition organised since 1971 by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) for eligible European football clubs. It ...

and Ligue 1. Rae served as a match commentator for ESPN USA's coverage of the 2014 FIFA World Cup finals in Brazil, and

UEFA Euro 2016 The 2016 UEFA European Football Championship, commonly referred to as UEFA Euro 2016 (stylised as UEFA EURO 2016) or simply Euro 2016, was the 15th UEFA European Championship, the quadrennial international men's football championship of Europe ...

in France. In 2017 he announced that he was to leave

and would return to the states to work for

. Rae also calls selected Premier League matches and has been a studio host for NBCSN. He will be calling Rugby Six nations games for them in 2018, having announced it on his Twitter feed on 29 January. In 2018, Rae became a commentator alongside

Lee Dixon Lee Michael Dixon (born 17 March 1964) is an English retired professional footballer and pundit who played as a right-back for Arsenal. Dixon was also capped 22 times for England. A childhood Manchester City fan, Dixon began his footballing ...

for ''

FIFA 19 ''FIFA 19'' is a football simulation video game developed by EA Vancouver and released by Electronic Arts on 28 September 2018 for PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and Microsoft Windows. It is the 26th installm ...

s UEFA club tournament part of the game which can be found in Kick Off, tournaments and Career mode. This partnership continued in ''

FIFA 20 ''FIFA 20'' is a football simulation video game published by Electronic Arts as part of the ''FIFA'' series. It is the 27th installment in the series and was released on 27 September 2019 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Nint ...

'' with inclusion of him also commentating some 'default' games (kick off, tournament, career and Ultimate Team modes) alongside

once again, as well as in ''

FIFA 21 ''FIFA 21'' is an association football simulation video game published by Electronic Arts as part of the '' FIFA series''. It is the 28th installment in the ''FIFA'' series, and was released on 9 October 2020 for Microsoft Windows, Nintendo Sw ...

''. Rae also worked as a commentator for the 2018 FIFA World Cup for

Fox Sports Fox Sports is the brand name for a number of sports channels, broadcast divisions, programming, and other media around the world. The ''Fox Sports'' name has since been used for other sports media assets. These assets are held mainly by the F ...

in the U.S., calling group stage games from a Los Angeles studio with Aly Wagner as an analyst. The duo then flew to Russia as on site commentators for Morocco-Iran, Costa Rica-Serbia, Tunisia-England, Uruguay-Saudi Arabia, France-Peru, Nigeria-Iceland, England-Panama, Iran-Portugal, Iceland-Croatia, England-Belgium, Spain-Russia, Colombia-England and Sweden-England. Rae broadcast his first MLS game for Fox on 2 March 2019 with a match between the LA Galaxy and the Chicago Fire at

Dignity Health Sports Park Dignity Health Sports Park is a multi-use sports complex located on the campus of California State University, Dominguez Hills in Carson, California. The complex consists of the 27,000-seat Dignity Health Sports Park soccer stadium, the Dignity ...

with former MLS player

Maurice Edu Maurice Edu (born April 18, 1986) is an American former professional soccer player. A highly touted prospect, Edu was the first overall pick in the 2007 MLS SuperDraft and won the MLS Rookie of the Year Award with Toronto. His performances for ...

. He forged an on air partnership in France with former US women's national team defender Danielle Slaton during the

2019 FIFA Women's World Cup The 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup was the eighth edition of the FIFA Women's World Cup, the quadrennial international Women's association football championship contested by 24 women's national teams representing member associations of FIFA. I ...

again on Fox Sports. They were commentators for many high-profile matches including most of the France and Netherlands matches & ending with the Netherlands-Sweden semi final on 3 July 2019. Rae worked as one of the many commentators for Amazon Prime Video's UK Premier League coverage working alongside

Sue Smith Sue Smith may refer to: * Sue Smith (politician) (born 1951), member of the Tasmanian Legislative Council * Sue Smith (footballer) (born 1979), English footballer * Sue Smith (trainer) (born 1948), British horse trainer * Sue Smith (writer), Austra ...

. Rae can often be heard commentating for the world feed of the

. Since 2017, Rae has also teamed with

Tommy Smyth Tommy may refer to: People * Tommy (given name) * Tommy Atkins, or just Tommy, a slang term for a common soldier in the British Army Arts and entertainment Film and television * ''Tommy'' (1931 film), a Soviet drama film * ''Tommy'' (1975 fil ...

to provide alternate

British English British English (BrE, en-GB, or BE) is, according to Lexico, Oxford Dictionaries, "English language, English as used in Great Britain, as distinct from that used elsewhere". More narrowly, it can refer specifically to the English language in ...

coverage on the

Amazon Video Amazon Prime Video, also known simply as Prime Video, is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming and rental service of Amazon offered as a standalone service or as part of Amazon's Prime subscription. The service pr ...

broadcast of

Thursday Night Football ''Thursday Night Football'' (often abbreviated as ''TNF'') is the branding used for broadcasts of National Football League (NFL) games that broadcast primarily on Thursday nights. Most of the games kick off at 8:15 Eastern Time (8:20 prior to 20 ...

in the US. In 2020, Rae was named as ESPN's lead

commentator as well as a contributor to

ESPN FC ESPN FC (formerly ESPN SoccerNet) is a website and a U.S. television studio program covering soccer that is broadcast daily over the streaming service ESPN+. ESPN FC's origin was a website owned by ESPN Inc. Originally established in 1995 as ...

, a columnist on ESPN.com, and a commentator for the

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

-language

coverage on ESPN and ABC in the

Television credits

FIFA World Cup The FIFA World Cup, often simply called the World Cup, is an international association football competition contested by the senior men's national teams of the members of the ' ( FIFA), the sport's global governing body. The tournament ha ...

: 1998 ( ABC/

), 2010 ( ABC/

), 2014 ( ABC/

), 2018 (

), 2022 (

) *

UEFA Champions League The UEFA Champions League (abbreviated as UCL, or sometimes, UEFA CL) is an annual club football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) and contested by top-division European clubs, deciding the competi ...

: 2002-2009 (

), 2013-2015 ( ITV/ STV), 2015-2017 (

) *

UEFA Europa League The UEFA Europa League (abbreviated as UEL, or sometimes, UEFA EL), formerly the UEFA Cup, is an annual football club competition organised since 1971 by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) for eligible European football clubs. ...

: 2009-2013 (

ESPN UK BT Sport 4 is a British sports television channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery EMEA and the BT Group. It is part of the BT Sport group of channels in the United Kingdom and Ireland, and is predominantly focused on sports from North America. ...

), 2013-2017 (

) *

UEFA European Championship The UEFA European Football Championship, less formally the European Championship and informally the Euro, is the primary association football tournament organised by the Union of European Football Associations ( UEFA). The competition is conte ...

: 2008 ( ABC/

), 2012 ( ABC/

), 2016 ( ABC/

), 2021 ( ABC/

) *

Scottish Premiership The Scottish Premiership, known as the cinch Premiership for sponsorship reasons, is the top division of the Scottish Professional Football League (SPFL), the league competition for men's professional football clubs in Scotland. The Scottis ...

: 2009-2013 (

), 2013-2017 (

) *

Premier League The Premier League (legal name: The Football Association Premier League Limited) is the highest level of the men's English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Fo ...

: 2009-2013 (

), 2017-present ( NBC Sports), 2019–present ( Amazon Prime Video) * FIFA Women's World Cup: 1999 ( ABC/

), 2019 (

) *

: 2009-2017 (

), 2017–present (World Feed), 2020-present ( ABC/

) *

: 2021–present (

) *

FA Cup The Football Association Challenge Cup, more commonly known as the FA Cup, is an annual knockout football competition in men's domestic English football. First played during the 1871–72 season, it is the oldest national football competi ...

: 2009-2017 (

) *

: 2002–2009, 2021–present ( ABC/

) *

MLS Major League Soccer (MLS) is a men's professional soccer league sanctioned by the United States Soccer Federation, which represents the sport's highest level in the United States. The league comprises 29 teams—26 in the U.S. and 3 in Canada ...

: 2019 (

) *

PxP: 1996–1999, 2001 * LA Galaxy PxP: 1996 * MetroStars PxP: 2000 * Summer Olympics (Football):

2021 File:2021 collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: the James Webb Space Telescope was launched in 2021; Protesters in Yangon, Myanmar following the coup d'état; A civil demonstration against the October 2021 coup in Sudan; Crowd shortly after t ...

(NBC Sports)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rae, Derek 1967 births Living people People from Aberdeen Association football commentators Scottish association football commentators Alumni of the University of Aberdeen British association football commentators Scottish rugby union commentators BT Sport presenters and reporters People educated at Hazlehead Academy