Last month, we asked you, the readers, to grade the nine Fox Sports broadcast teams calling games at the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Voters were asked to assign letter grades ranging from A through F to as many or as few teams as they’d like.
Now, we’ve tabulated all of the votes and compiled the results into a final ranking. Just as we do for our NFL, NBA, or MLB rankings, we’ve distilled your letter grades into a GPA of sorts for each team. A grades were given a 4.0, B grades a 3.0, and so on.
So without further ado, here are the official 2026 FIFA World Cup announcer rankings as voted on by Awful Announcing readers.
9. JP Dellacamera and Lori Lindsey – 1.99
Unfortunately for American soccer broadcasting legend JP Dellacamera, his final World Cup was not one our readers reflected fondly upon. Dellacamera and Lori Lindsey received the highest percentage of F grades among all nine Fox broadcast teams; about 21 percent of all respondents selected this grade. However, the team did get its fair share of A and B grades, with about 41 percent of respondents.
8. Mark Scott and Cobi Jones – 2.11
Mark Scott and Cobi Jones called by far the fewest games of any Fox broadcasting team during this World Cup, so it stands to reason they received the fewest overall votes from our readers. The vast majority of these votes fell into the B and C categories, about 70 percent in all. Likewise, very few respondents selected an A or F grade, perhaps because viewers were rarely exposed to this duo.
7. Tyler Terens and Maurice Edu – 2.31
The story of Tyler Terens and Maurice Edu is similar to Scott and Jones in eighth place; Terens and Edu called the second fewest games of any pairing, and therefore most of their votes fell into the same B or C range. 67 percent of all voters graded this team within that range. 14 percent of respondents gave this team an A grade.
6. John Strong and Stu Holden – 2.33
Perhaps the biggest surprise of the entire list, Fox’s lead World Cup pairing of John Strong and Stu Holden finds itself in sixth place. Readers found this duo polarizing, with about half the votes falling into the A or B categories and the other half grading the team a C or below. Strong and Holden received the second-most F votes among teams, behind only Dellacamera and Lindsey. It’s fair to say that Strong and Holden might’ve faced more criticism from our readers due to their relatively high exposure. The pair called every USMNT game throughout the tournament, as well as many other high-profile matchups.
5. Jacqui Oatley and Warren Barton – 2.40
Jacqui Oatley and Warren Barton received mostly positive marks from our readers. About 80 percent of respondents rated this team a C or above, with the largest pool of voters selecting B. The duo just edged out Fox’s lead team of Strong and Holden due to receiving fewer votes in the D and F categories.
4. Ian Crocker and Danny Higginbotham – 2.86
There’s a relatively big jump between the bottom-five pairings and the top-four pairings according to our readers. Ian Crocker and Danny Higginbotham are the first pairing in this upper tier, with about 70 percent of respondents grading this team as either an A or B. This team, along with the three pairings that ranked higher, all benefited from earning very few D or F votes. Only six percent of respondents selected D or F for this team.
3. Ian Darke and Landon Donovan – 3.04
Slotting in at third is beloved play-by-play voice Ian Darke and USMNT legend Landon Donovan. 40 percent of respondents graded this team an A, while an additional 37 percent graded them a B. Darke’s history as a lead voice on USMNT matches, including Donovan’s famous last-minute goal against Algeria to send the Americans through to the knockout stage in 2010, has made him a fan-favorite in this country for years. Unfortunately, about 10 percent of respondents selected D or F for this team, dragging its ranking down compared to the other top-four pairings whose D and F grades fell in the low single digits.
2. Derek Rae and Robert Green – 3.17
You might begin to sense a theme with these rankings; Awful Announcing readers seem to enjoy British announcers when it comes to soccer. Derek Rae and Rob Green continue that trend. 83 percent of respondents graded this team as an A or B, with those grades split approximately down the middle. Conversely, only about four percent of respondents selected a D or F grade.
1. Darren Fletcher and Owen Hargreaves – 3.24
Last but not least, the top World Cup announcing duo as voted by our readers is Darren Fletcher and Owen Hargreaves. This was the only pairing in which over half of respondents gave an A, with 53 percent of voters giving Fletcher and Hargreaves top marks. An additional 30 percent rated this team as a B, while only six percent selected the two lowest grades of D or F. Fletcher made a bit of a name for himself this tournament, not being shy about throwing in pop culture references or comparisons to American sports, which seems to have resonated with our readers.
Source: Awful Announcing
