Hold On!!! Eric Andre Will be in the Announcing Booth for a World Cup Game?!?!

Yes, Eric Andre says he is going to be in the announcing booth for a World Cup game, calling Haiti versus Brazil on June 19th in Philadelphia. He's not even sure he's allowed to say it yet.

The reveal came almost by accident. Andre told Rich he's heading to the World Cup to honor his late father, who was from Haiti and loved watching the tournament. Then he let something slip.

"I'm going to. They want me to announce maybe," Andre said. When Rich pressed, asking if he meant the booth, Andre froze. "Hold on. I don't know what I'm allowed to say." He glanced at his publicist mid-sentence. "Yes. Maybe. I don't know. Am I allowed to say it? I'm looking at my publicist. I don't know if it's announced yet."

Then came the pitch for what kind of broadcaster he'd be. Andre wants to be a disruptor in the booth, and he has a model in mind.

"I do want to be the Gary Payton of FIFA announcers," he said, invoking the brief, chaotic run Payton once had as a basketball announcer before getting pulled. "He was like the DMX of basketball announcers. I want to be the Gary Payton of soccer."

The catch, as Andre freely admitted, is that he doesn't actually know the sport. "I don't know anything about soccer. But I like watching it. I like watching the World Cup." His value proposition isn't analysis. "I'm adding entertainment value. I don't know all the history of football, which we call soccer."

That set up a crash course, with Rich and the crew walking him through offsides, the no-hands rule, the theatrical flopping, and the mystery spray trainers use on downed players. Andre had jokes for all of it, but he also revealed he has real opinions. He hates deciding matches on penalty kicks.

"That just tells me who the best team at penalty kicks is. I don't like that. I think it should just be sudden death," he said. "That's like letting the Harlem Globetrotters play the Spurs."

The match has stakes beyond the booth. Andre said he's meeting the Haiti team and shaking their hands, noting they haven't reached the World Cup in 52 years. "They're very much like the Knicks of the world."

So, World Cup viewers tuning into Haiti versus Brazil on June 19th may get an announcer who can't use the right terminology but is, in his words, "pissed off" and ready with takes.