Today the Los Angeles Lakers announced that they have hired Adrian Garcia Marquez (play-by-play) and Francisco Pinto (television analyst) as the team’s Spanish television announcers for the upcoming 2012-13 season.
The team’s deal with Time Warner Cable to distribute all locally available pre-season, regular and post-season games also includes an agreement to launch a Spanish-language regional sports network.
Lakers Senior Vice President of Business Operations/CMO Tim Harris released a small statement with the news of the hiring.
“With the hiring of Adrian and Francisco, we’ve added two very knowledgeable and passionate sports personalities to our broadcasting staff and we’re moving one step closer to providing our loyal fans in the Hispanic community better coverage of our players and organization that they’ve supported with such great enthusiasm for many years.”
Adrian Garcia Marquez is a San Diego native that has over a decade of experience in the broadcast field. He recently worked as a netowrk anchor and reporter for KMEX in Los Angeles, as well as a contributor at Univision Sports. Before working with KMEX and Univision, Garcia Marquez was the lead Major League Baseball play-by-play announcer for Fox Deportes, where he called four World Series. Back in 2004, Garcia Marquez was named to the first ever Olympic Spanish broadcast team in the United States, and was named as an announcer for baseball and basketball on Telemundo for the Olympic games in Athens.
Francisco Pinto spent 15 years working as an anchor for Univision before joining the Lakers. Three of those years were spent in Sacramento as an anchor for KUVS before spending the next 12 years in Los Angeles with KMEX-TV. His experience in the sporting world is certainly extensive, from providing live coverage of two World Cups in 2002 and 2006, to several NBA Finals, Super Bowls and World Series. In addition to his sports coverage, Pinto has hosted The Rose Parade in Pasadena for several years, which is famously broadcasted nationally by KMEX.