Andres Cantor (Photo by Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images)
NEW YORK — Andrés Cantor, the celebrated sportscaster whose famously lengthy Gooooooool! calls will be part of Telemundo’s coverage of the World Cup, is becoming known for his social media presence as well.
Cantor is on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter with the understanding that like his bellowing of goal calls, the social media posts will live on too.
“Sometimes my kids ask me, ‘Why do you post so much?'” the 55-year-old Cantor said. “And I figure also that it’s a way of writing a daily diary.
“Obviously I think it’s good that I post things that are there forever and in a few years will make sense of what my career has been.”
A four-time Emmy Award winner, Cantor has been voicing his opinions on Twitter since the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, racking up more than 88,000 followers. These days, he’s using the Snapchat app. And with 100 days to go until the World Cup in Russia, he’ll be active on all platforms leading up to what will be his eighth World Cup as a play-by-play announcer.
“I think it’s a way to connect with the fans,” Cantor said. “I call games on the weekends usually because all the football and soccer on the weekends. On a daily basis, I’m connected with my fanbase through social media.”
For the World Cup in Russia, Telemundo is offering a full-service virtual reality app. Cantor has taken notice, having experienced soccer in VR himself.
“VR, it’s amazing,” Cantor said. “I tried it, and maybe it won’t be the future because it’s not complicated but you have to wear the headgear, but I’ve seen the 360-degree experience of the soccer game in a demo reel. It’s incredible. It’s very hard to concentrate on the action of the game with the VR thing and you’re immersed. It looks like you’re sitting in the stadium, and the play is a little bit far away, but you see everything that is going around you, which is absolutely incredible.”
Cantor is a self-described geek when it comes to technology.
“I’ve always been kind of techie or tech-savvy,” he said.
“I read the technology section of the Wall Street Journal every day. I read all the Mac magazines. I’m an Apple fan, so I read all the news of the new softwares. Sometimes it challenges my mind because some things are a little bit complicated to start navigating and learn, but I love technology. I buy every single gadget that comes out from Apple. I’m probably Apple’s No. 1 fan.”
