What You Need to Know About Great Sports Speeches

From as far back as the Olympics to the advent of the Super Bowl, sporting events have inspired a following and fanaticism unparalleled by just about anything else short of religious fervor. We see evidence of this each and every day in the salaries paid to professional athletes, high attendance at various sporting events and the sheer amount of serialized merchandise and memorabilia that abounds. It should come as no surprise, then, to know that sports speeches are on the rise and more and more people are looking for insider information and clues to help make sure that their own sports speeches are a rousing success.

 

If you fit that bill, don't despair. In this article, we'll be providing you with plenty of tips, tricks and source materials to help you write and deliver great sports speeches!

 

Various Types of Sports Speeches…

There is no shortage when it comes to types of sports speeches you can deliver. There are acceptance speeches, speeches delivered in honor of a player, and introductory speeches for new coaches and/or teammates. There are speeches delivered to audiences that share a common sporting interest and there are speeches delivered debating or persuading opinions one way or another. You might need to welcome a new team of Pee-Wee baseball players and their parents or give a speech in honor of a famous MVP on national television. And while the audiences, venues or topics may change, there are some similarities between all sports speeches that you should pay careful attention to.

 

The Basics of Creating a Great Sports Speech…

The two most important aspects of any great speech are content and structure. Your content is important because it's what keeps your audience interested in what you have to say. Structure is vital because it helps you deliver the content of your speech in the most powerful, effective and efficient way possible. Therefore, in order to have a killer sports speech, you've got to follow some general guidelines that help ensure success.

 

When choosing the content that will go into the creation of your speech, make sure that you find ways to actively involve not only any honorees you'll address, but also your audience. Regardless of how famous someone is, or how many touchdowns they scored, if you can't offer your audience useful information that satisfies a need for deeper understanding or personal knowledge, they're going to get bored. And a bored audience is a surefire way to limit the impact and power of your message, no matter how important that message may be.

 

You can find useful, compelling content in the form of quotations, anecdotes, surprising facts and statistics or obscure, insightful information into a person they thought they already knew everything about.

 

Some great sites that can help you find this useful content include:

• http://www.amstat.org/setions/sis/
• http://www.didyouknow.cd/sport/sport.htm
• http://www.famous-quotes-and-quotations.com/sports-quote.html
• http://www.sentex.net/~ajy/facts/sportsgame.html

Each of these sites offers different sources of quotes, facts and statistics that you can incorporate into your sports speech to keep your audience riveted.

 

You can further involve the audience, and also help them stay interested by offering any personal experiences or stories that can help bring your point home. However, keep in mind that, while it's great to highlight achievements and accomplishments of honorees or teams, you should try not to overdo it. No one likes a brownnoser and the people attending are likely already very aware of how successful and accomplished the individual or team is.

 

Instead, try to tie your whole speech into an overall theme or mood that allows you to keep your audience interested while keeping your message coherent and connected. Also, while creating the content of your speech, make sure that you restrict yourself to no more than three main points, with a total of about three supporting points for each one.

 

When structuring your speech, make sure that you include room for important pauses or moments of emphasis, such as after jokes or startling statements or statistics. Look for additional ways that you can incorporate movement, gestures, eye-contact, audience involvement and visual aids to further interest your listeners.

 

Of course, not all great sports speeches are given in honor of teams or individuals. A great many of them are just ordinary speeches with a centralized sporting them or a persuasive argument for or against issues related to the sporting industry.

 

Other Sport Speech Related Topics…

If you fall under this category of public speaking, and can't simply expound upon the highlights and achievements and stories of a notable figure or team, don't despair. There are plenty of fabulous sports topics that you can deliver a fantastic speech on.

 

Some of these include:

• Current events in the sporting world (strikes, trades, etc.)
• Steroids
• Illiteracy in athletes
• Unusual or extreme sports and sporting events
• The Olympic games
• Athlete salaries
• Scholarships and contracts
• Drug testing
• Donating to charity, or
• Politically correct (or incorrect) team mascots.