Luke Wileman is the new TV voice of U.S. national team games on HBO Max and TNT

By The Philadelphia Inquirer (TNS)January 10, 2023

Jan. 10—The new voice of U.S. national team broadcasts has a lot of experience with American soccer, but he might not be well-known to a lot of fans yet.

That will change in a few days.

Luke Wileman, a veteran of Canadian sports channel TSN, will be the lead play-by-play voice for U.S. men's and women's team games on HBO Max and TNT. He will debut next Tuesday when the U.S. women play their first game of the year at upcoming World Cup co-host New Zealand (10 p.m., HBO Max).

"I can't wait to get started," Wileman told The Inquirer. "It's a role that gives a lot of responsibility, because national team games have so much interest from coast to coast and have the ability to unite people across the country. ... I think with both the young talent on the women's and the men's teams right now there are only big times ahead for both programs."

An England native, Wileman has worked for TSN since 2011 and has lived in the Toronto area since moving to Canada in 2006. He has called games at multiple women's World Cups and soccer at the Olympics, and is planning to be in New Zealand and Australia for TSN this summer. (Canada was drawn in Australia's group, along with the Republic of Ireland and Nigeria.)

That includes the Canadian broadcasts of some the U.S. women's team's most famous wins: the 2012 Olympic gold medal game and the 2015 World Cup semifinal and final.

"To see pretty much every seat in Vancouver taken by U.S. soccer fans for that [2015] final, and Carli Lloyd put in that performance, that was an incredible moment and one of my one of my career highlights," Wileman said. "For a long time, it's been a program, obviously, that has been at the very highest level."

In the men's game, Wileman has been TSN's lead MLS voice for many years. He called games in the recent World Cup, has done Concacaf Gold Cups in the past, and has hosted studio coverage of the English Premier League, the UEFA Champions League, and the European Championship.

Before coming to Canada, Wileman spent six years as a reporter and broadcaster for the BBC.

Wileman will continue to call MLS games for TSN. It's not too much of a scheduling conflict, because MLS doesn't play during most FIFA men's windows (though it will during some this year).

Warner Brothers Discovery Sports, which owns HBO Max and TNT, will announce the rest of its broadcaster team soon.

___

Visit The Philadelphia Inquirer at www.inquirer.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.