Sporting Blue Wedding Continues, Sporting Waive 2 More, Will Have New Announce Team

The changes to Sporting KC roster continue, and they've now expanded beyond the field to the broadcast booth as well.

The team has made no formal announcement, but with the waiver draft this afternoon, after the expansion draft, two more Sporting KC players appeared on the list available to be drafted, Christian Duke and Martin Steuble.

Duke, a Sporting KC academy product that the team drafted in the 2013 Supplemental Draft. He never appeared in a competitive game for Sporting Kansas City but has spent part of the last two seasons on loan to Sporting's two USL affiliates, Orlando City and Oklahoma City.

Steuble, a midseason acquisition along with Jorge Claros, made just three appearances for the club after signing, one start. The other two were late game substitutes, totaling just 69 minutes for the club. Recently he's been away with the Philippines national team at the AAF Cup where he'd played every minute of their three group games. In the semifinals, he played 90 minutes in their 0-0 draw with Thailand, but in the return leg was sent off in the 82nd minute as the Philippines fell 3-0.

Williams and Gutierrez Will Not Be Back

The other news today was that Sporting KC's broadcast team of Callum Williams and Diego Gutierrez would not be back next season. Williams had been with the team since the 2011 season, covering play-by-play duties for SKCTV. He'd developed a following of fans in KC and around the league. One thing I've heard consistently was his even balanced commentary that was never too bias for the home team. Whoever replaces him will certainly have some big shoes to fill in the eyes of the fans.

Gutierrez, the former KC Wizards captain, was in his first season in the booth. He'd replaced Jake Yadrich, who moved from the booth to the sideline this season. Gutierrez didn't have as many fans as Williams did, a lot of the comments regarding him was that his commentary was too bias towards Kansas City and that he struggled to stay in the flow of the game. There's been no announcement on who will replace them in 2015.

Mike Jones Released

Sporting KC has apparently released defender Mike Jones from his contract with the team. That's the word from Callum Williams, the clubs play-by-play announcer today on Twitter. Looking at some of Jones' Tweets from yesterday, that certainly seems to make sense. Jones was Kansas City's second round pick in this year's Supplemental draft. The SIU Edwardsville graduate appeared in Sporting KC's first reserve league game of the season down in Houston against the Dynamo playing the entire game. That was his only appearance for KC during his time here. Jones did make one other bench appearance for KC, appearing on the bench during KC's trip to Chicago this year. The move leaves KC with 25 players on their active roster with Konrad Warzycha currently on IR. Good luck to Jones in his career whether it's in the game or not.

Broadcast Change

During "Off the Pitch" Sunday night in the closing of the program, Callum Williams made mention that the game was Sasha Victorine's last game in the booth for a while. Today we got more of an explanation as to what is happening. Victorine is gone from the booth and will take another position in the organization. Based on a post by Williams on Bigsoccer, it sounds like it had plenty to do with family and Victorine wants to spend time with his kid.

The team has not announced a permanent replacement, but for this week in New York, Williams will be joined by Brian Kilmeade of "Fox and Friends". Kilmeade is a former college player, and was a sideline reporter for New York when they were the Metrostars. His work on Fox though has overshadowed this announcement in some fans eyes who look at his political views and are not really happy with some of the comments that Kilmeade has made in the past. Personally I don't really care, I'm not watching the game for his political views, and honestly I likely won't hear many of his comments.

New Broadcaster for Sporting KC

Earlier today on Bigsoccer someone pointed out this Tweet by BBC commentator/report, Callum Williams. Gooch over at the Star has been able to get confirmation of this that Williams would be heading over to become a presenter and commentator on the television broadcasts on KSMO. It looks like he will be the lead commentator on the broadcasts, replacing Dave Borchardt. Williams is young, he's still in his early 20's, but has most recently been working for the BBC, manly doing Chesterfield games. It should add an interesting dynamic to the games this year.