ABC Sport, formerly ABC Radio Grandstand, is a live radio sports focused commentary and talk-back program which runs on the

Australian Broadcasting Corporation The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) is the national broadcaster of Australia. It is principally funded by direct grants from the Australian Government and is administered by a government-appointed board. The ABC is a publicly-own ...

(ABC) local radio network across Australia and on one digital-only station.

History

From the first week in November 2020, the ABC rebranded all of its sports coverage as "ABC SPORT", renaming the ABC Grandstand on

digital radio Digital radio is the use of digital technology to transmit or receive across the radio spectrum. Digital transmission by radio waves includes digital broadcasting, and especially digital audio radio services. Types In digital broadcasting syst ...

as well as its

social media Social media are interactive media technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks. While challenges to the definition of ''social medi ...

accounts to this name.

Description

Sports that covered by the station include Test,

Twenty20 Twenty20 (T20) is a shortened game format of cricket. At the professional level, it was introduced by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) in 2003 for the inter-county competition. In a Twenty20 game, the two teams have a single innin ...

and One-Day International

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

(live),

rugby league Rugby league football, commonly known as just rugby league and sometimes football, footy, rugby or league, is a full-contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular field measuring 68 metres (75 yards) wide and 112 ...

(mostly in

Queensland ) , nickname = Sunshine State , image_map = Queensland in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Queensland in Australia , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , established_ ...

and

New South Wales ) , nickname = , image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , es ...

), the

Summer Olympics The Summer Olympic Games (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques d'été), also known as the Games of the Olympiad, and often referred to as the Summer Olympics, is a major international multi-sport event normally held once every four years. The inau ...

Australian Football League The Australian Football League (AFL) is the only fully professional competition of Australian rules football. Through the AFL Commission, the AFL also serves as the sport's governing body and is responsible for controlling the laws of the gam ...

games,

Australian Open The Australian Open is a tennis tournament held annually at Melbourne Park in Melbourne, Australia. The tournament is the first of the four Grand Slam tennis events held each year, preceding the French Open, Wimbledon, and the US Open. Th ...

tennis Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball ...

and

soccer 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 ...

matches, including games involving the

Socceroos The Australia men's national soccer team represents Australia in international men's soccer. Officially nicknamed the Socceroos, the team is controlled by the governing body for soccer in Australia, Football Australia, which is affiliated with ...

and the

A-League A-League Men (known as the Isuzu UTE A-League for sponsorship reasons) is the highest-level professional men's soccer league in Australia and New Zealand. At the top of the Australian league system, it is the country's premier men's competiti ...

competition.

Programming

Grandstand cricket

ABC Grandstand has been broadcasting cricket since the 1930, and is the only national

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

n radio station to broadcast live Test, One Day and domestic

. The lead ABC cricket commentators are as follows: * Jim Maxwell - A highly experienced and highly regarded cricket commentator, Maxwell has covered Australian One-Day, Test, and World Cup matches. He also has broadcast

rugby union Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In its m ...

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping wi ...

, and

hockey Hockey is a term used to denote a family of various types of both summer and winter team sports which originated on either an outdoor field, sheet of ice, or dry floor such as in a gymnasium. While these sports vary in specific rules, numbers o ...

, and

Olympic Games The modern Olympic Games or Olympics (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques) are the leading international sporting events featuring summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a var ...

. *

Ian Chappell Ian Michael Chappell (born 26 September 1943) is a former cricketer who played for South Australia and Australia. He captained Australia between 1971 and 1975 before taking a central role in the breakaway World Series Cricket organisation. Born ...

- Former captain of Australia. He has played over 90 Test and One Day cricket matches for Australia and has a Test batting average of 42.42. *

Alison Mitchell Alison Mitchell (born 17 January) is an English-Australian cricket commentator and sports broadcaster, working for the BBC, Australia's Channel 7 and the Australian Open among others. She was the first woman to become a regular commentator on the ...

- Commentator of Channel 7's cricket coverage since 2018, first joined the ABC in 2014. She has also covered the

Commonwealth Games The Commonwealth Games, often referred to as the Friendly Games or simply the Comm Games, are a quadrennial international multi-sport event among athletes from the Commonwealth of Nations. The event was first held in 1930, and, with the exce ...

and four Women's Cricket World Cups. Other notable callers include Andrew Moore,

Kristen Beams Kristen Maree Beams (born 6 November 1984) is an Australian former cricket player. Beams played one Test, thirty One Day Internationals and eighteen Twenty20 Internationals for the Australia national women's cricket team between 2014 and 2017. ...

Dirk Nannes Dirk Peter Nannes (born 16 May 1976) is an Australian-Dutch cricket commentator and former cricketer who has played internationally for both Australia and the Netherlands, one of the few players to represent multiple international teams. Fr ...

, and

Stuart Clark Stuart Rupert Clark (born 28 September 1975) is an Australian former cricketer who played for New South Wales and the Australian team. He was a right-arm fast-medium bowler. His nickname "Sarfraz" originates from the similarities of his bowli ...

Grandstand rugby league

Grandstand Rugby League is the ABC's flagship

NRL The National Rugby League (NRL) is an Australasian rugby league club competition which contains clubs from New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, the Australian Capital Territory and New Zealand. The NRL formed in 1998 as a joint partnership ...

programme in the northern states. The programme calls every game live each week of the season including the

State of Origin series The State of Origin series is an annual best-of-three rugby league series between two Australian state representative sides, the New South Wales Blues and the Queensland Maroons. Referred to as “Australian sport's greatest rivalry”, the ...

and Finals with in depth previews and reviews, analysis, extensive talkback and interviews, and live score updates of other matches.

Grandstand AFL

''Grandstand''

AFL AFL may refer to: Sports * American Football League (AFL), a name shared by several separate and unrelated professional American football leagues: ** American Football League (1926) (a.k.a. "AFL I"), first rival of the National Football Leagu ...

is ABC's flagship sports programme in the southern states. The programme calls six AFL games live a week with further match preview, analysis, and talkback of the game. An introduction in 2008 was the Sunday Inquisition with Gerard Whateley highlighting the good and the bad of the AFL games for the past week. Coverage preference is given to local teams in their state. National coverage for games outside the home state is determined by the match with the highest appeal. Commentators: Quentin Hull, Rob Cross, Peter Walsh, Clint Wheeldon, Corbin Middlemas, Adam White, Matt Clinch,

David Parkin David Alex Parkin, OAM (born 12 September 1942) is a former Australian rules footballer and coach who played for the Hawthorn Football Club in the Victorian Football League (VFL) and for the Subiaco Football Club in the Western Australian Na ...

Jon Dorotich Jonathan Michael Dorotich (born 27 April 1962) is a former Australian rules footballer who played for the Carlton Football Club in the Australian Football League (AFL) and for the South Fremantle Football Club in the West Australian Football Le ...

Kelli Underwood Kelli Underwood (born 1977) is an Australian radio and television sports journalist and sportscaster specialising in Australian rules football, netball and tennis. She was the first woman to call an Australian Football League match on televisi ...

Stan Alves Neil Stanley "Stan" Alves, Order of Australia, OAM (born 22 May 1946) is a former Australian rules football player and coach. Playing career Melbourne Alves played 226 games and kicked a total of 160 goals for the Melbourne Football Club from ...

Mark Maclure Mark Maclure (born 14 July 1955) is a former Australian rules footballer in the Victorian Football League (VFL). Originally from New South Wales club East Sydney, Maclure was recruited by Carlton and made his senior VFL debut in Round 13, ...

Grandstand A-League

Beginning in the 2013/14 season, ABC Grandstand began covering every match of the

live on either local radio, digital radio, or via a dedicated mobile app.

Presenters

Simone Thurtell

Simone Thurtell was a presenter for Grandstand.profiles
/ref> She formerly shared the hosting of the summer Grandstand program with others, including

Karen Tighe Karen Anne Tighe (pronounced "tie") is an Australian Broadcasting Corporation radio and television sports presenter. She grew up and was educated in Sydney, New South Wales, Sydney, and completed a Bachelor of Arts in communications and psycholo ...

, Tracy Holmes and Peter Walsh. She was ABC's around-the-ground reporter during international cricket matches played at the SCG. She is probably best known for her ''Grandstand Active Show'', which featured regular guests, including

Kerry O'Keeffe Kerry James O'Keeffe (born 25 November 1949) is a former Australian cricketer and a current cricket commentator for Fox Sports. O'Keeffe played 24 Test matches and two One Day Internationals between 1971 and 1977. Playing career He was a spin ...

Geoff Huegill Geoffrey Andrew Huegill (born 4 March 1979) is an Australian swimmer and dual Olympian who won seventy-two international medals, including two medals in Olympics and six world champion titles, throughout his career. He held eight world records, i ...

and Al Baxter, and covered the sporting issues of the day, overnight scores and live crosses to sport. Thurtell initially worked for

ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster ** Disney–ABC Television ...

TV Sport, before switching into the ABC Radio Grandstand team. She covered major events such as the

2000 Sydney Olympics The 2000 Summer Olympics, officially the Games of the XXVII Olympiad and also known as Sydney 2000 (Dharug: ''Gadigal 2000''), the Millennium Olympic Games or the Games of the New Millennium, was an international multi-sport event held from 1 ...

and

2006 Commonwealth Games The 2006 Commonwealth Games, officially the XVIII Commonwealth Games and commonly known as Melbourne 2006 (Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm 2006'' or ''Naarm 2006''), was an international multi-sport event for members of the Commonwealth held ...

New Delhi New Delhi (, , ''Naī Dillī'') is the capital of India and a part of the National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT). New Delhi is the seat of all three branches of the government of India, hosting the Rashtrapati Bhavan, Parliament House ...

. She called many sports, particularly

netball Netball is a ball sport played on a court by two teams of seven players. It is among a rare number of sports which have been created exclusively for female competitors. The sport is played on indoor and outdoor netball courts and is specifical ...

. She presented Drive on

1233 ABC Newcastle ABC Newcastle (call sign: 2NC) is an Australian radio station. It is the Newcastle station of the ABC local radio network, and is licensed to, and serving Newcastle and surrounding areas. It operates on the AM band at 1233 kilohertz. Formerly kn ...

in 2007 and 2008, before returning to Grandstand in 2009.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Abc Radio Grandstand Australian Broadcasting Corporation radio programmes Sports radio in Australia English-language radio programs Sports radio programs