{"id":2049792,"date":"2026-07-18T11:00:24","date_gmt":"2026-07-18T08:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2049792"},"modified":"2026-07-18T11:00:24","modified_gmt":"2026-07-18T08:00:24","slug":"meet-mark-fratto-the-world-cup-final-pa-announcer-im-in-the-candy-aisle-of-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2049792","title":{"rendered":"Meet Mark Fratto, the World Cup final PA announcer: \u2018I\u2019m in the candy aisle of life\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Mark Fratto started his career as a public-address announcer speaking to small audiences.<\/p>\n

As a first-grader, on the first Friday of every month, he performed readings during Catholic Mass services at St. Mary\u2019s School in Wappingers Falls, N.Y. When he and one of his younger brothers, Timmy, played Wiffle ball in their backyard, pretending they were members of the New York Yankees, he did the introductions. And when his high-school classmates told him he wouldn\u2019t make the varsity basketball team, he did the next best thing; he served as the announcer.<\/p>\n

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Countless paid gigs have followed in the three decades since. Fans of the NFL\u2019s Washington Commanders, the NBA\u2019s Washington Wizards and Major League Soccer\u2019s New York City Football Club would recognize his distinctive voice.<\/p>\n

On Sunday, he will work in front of the most global sports audience imaginable: the 2026 World Cup final between Spain and Argentina\u00a0at MetLife Stadium. Fratto, 49, has served as the public-address announcer for the previous seven World Cup games at the venue in East Rutherford, N.J.<\/p>\n

It is the greatest honor of his working life, a job that requires extensive homework and rehearsals to ensure he pronounces all of the players\u2019 names correctly.<\/p>\n

\u201cI get a little nervous before every game, and I think my nerves in this case are entirely related to the fact that I\u2019m saying a lot of challenging international names,\u201d Fratto says. \u201cI want to do it with authenticity to make the fans of those teams feel welcomed and excited and give them the same kind of authentic experience that they have in their home stadiums, or in other places in the world.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy goal is to make sure I\u2019m putting in enough of the work and doing enough of the preparation to make sure I get everyone\u2019s names right, because for a lot of players, this is their dream. For a lot of fans, attending these matches is their dream. And for everyone, this could be their first World Cup or it could be their last World Cup, and I\u2019m part of the team that is charged with making it memorable for all those groups and all those people.\u201d<\/p>\n

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A post shared by Mark Fratto (@markfratto)<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

You have heard Fratto speak if you\u2019ve watched any of the previous World Cup games at MetLife Stadium, particularly the portions where players from both teams line up for their national anthems.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt this time, we ask that you please rise, if you are able, for the national anthem of Brazil,\u201d he said on June 13. Almost two minutes later, after Brazil\u2019s national anthem ended, he said, \u201cPlease remain standing, if you are able, for the national anthem of Morocco.\u201d<\/p>\n

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One of the directives for all public-address announcers at this World Cup, regardless of the location, has been to let the fans infuse the stadiums with energy with their cheering, their songs, their chants (and, at times, their whistling). That means the World Cup\u2019s public-address announcers have spoken much less frequently than their counterparts in the NFL or in the NBA. The World Cup announcers get out of the way, so to speak, to make the fan experience as authentic as possible to the traditions in the teams\u2019 home countries.<\/p>\n

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But when public-address announcers do speak, they must be as accurate as possible with their pronunciations. So it should be no surprise, then, that the audition process was strenuous. When he applied for the job, Fratto recalls, he had to submit a recording of his pronunciations of all players\u2019 names on the projected rosters for Iran, Japan, Jordan, South Korea, Saudi Arabia and Uzbekistan. Not an easy task for a native English speaker.<\/p>\n

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Those names were, for the most part, much more demanding than those he has pronounced when working as the public-address announcer at Commanders football games since 2023 at Northwest Stadium and Wizards basketball games since 2019 at Capital One Arena.<\/p>\n

Fratto acknowledges he has a dream job, but it is not without its pressures or responsibilities. The NFL, for instance, requires its public-address announcers to finish speaking with at least 20 seconds remaining on the play clock before a visiting team is required to snap the ball.<\/p>\n

Darius Smith, the Commanders\u2019 senior director for game presentation and entertainment, described Fratto as a consummate professional. Fratto, for instance, will attend the early stages of the Commanders\u2019 training camp to make certain he will accurately pronounce the names of all of the players on the Commanders\u2019 preseason roster.<\/p>\n

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On Oct. 5, 2023, in just his third regular-season game as the Commanders\u2019 public-address announcer, Smith and Fratto had to think, and work, fast. A few hours earlier, Chicago Bears Hall of Fame middle linebacker Dick Butkus died at 80 years old. Because the Commanders were hosting the Bears later that night, Smith, Fratto and their colleagues had to adjust the pregame script and pregame timing for a moment of silence in Butkus\u2019 memory.<\/p>\n

Making the work more complicated was that the game would be televised to a national audience, requiring the moment of silence to be coordinated with the broadcast network.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe helped craft the script based off experience and adding in some language that he felt passionate about, which was agreed upon,\u201d Smith says. \u201cJust having that level of professionalism, but also caring about the moment, making sure that he was paying respect to the Butkus family\u2026 I noticed he was really prepared and able to handle it.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n Mark Fratto has worked as the Washington Wizards\u2019 PA announcer since 2019 (Mark Fratto)<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Fratto grew up in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., a city along the Hudson River about 80 miles north of midtown Manhattan.<\/p>\n

He never dreamed that announcing sporting events would become part of his life\u2019s work.<\/p>\n

He played baseball and ran cross-country at Our Lady of Lourdes High School and wanted to try out for the boys\u2019 basketball team as a junior, but his baseball teammates told him he wasn\u2019t good enough to make the varsity. Instead, they encouraged him to work as the public-address announcer for the basketball games. At his friends\u2019 urging, he mimicked the Chicago Bulls\u2019 enthusiastic announcer, Ray Clay, whose pregame introductions had become famous because Michael Jordan had elevated the Bulls to repeated national television appearances.<\/p>\n

When Clay would introduce Bulls players before tipoff, the arena\u2019s sound system would play The Alan Parsons Project\u2019s instrumental song \u201cSirius.\u201d<\/p>\n

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That same song served as the music when 2026 World Cup teams walked onto the pitch before the national anthems early in the tournament.<\/p>\n

Now a husband and father to two boys, Fratto \u2014 whose first syllable is pronounced as the first syllable in \u201cfraternity\u201d \u2014 has seen his career come full circle. He owns a company called Linacre Media, which does live sporting event production for broadcast and streaming platforms, voiceover work and media consulting work, and also includes his announcing work. His wife, Kristin, and sons, seven-year-old Jackson and five-year-old Mason, are supportive when he has to work nights or out-of-town gigs.<\/p>\n

\u201cI never forget how fortunate I am to have a job like this,\u201d he says. \u201cI have a company that provides for my family, and I\u2019m in the toy aisle or the candy aisle of life, having a ridiculously good time every time I leave the house and go to work.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause of that, I feel obligated to do a great job for the people on my home teams, and for all of those who are coming out to watch their teams. For the World Cup, the gravity is there because the people care about their teams so much.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mark Fratto started his career as a public-address announcer speaking to small audiences. As a first-grader, on the first Friday of every month, he performed readings during Catholic Mass services at St. Mary\u2019s School in Wappingers Falls, N.Y. When he and one of his younger brothers, Timmy, played Wiffle ball in their backyard, pretending they […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[226,241],"class_list":["post-2049792","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-crawlmanager","tag-nytimes-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2049792","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2049792"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2049792\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2049792"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2049792"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2049792"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}