Former Union broadcaster Danny Higginbotham remains a familiar voice with Apple TV

Ask Danny Higginbotham how things are going lately, and he’ll tell you there’s a lot of going.

Last Wednesday, he was at Subaru Park for the Union-Dallas game. After a day at home with the family, his next few days went like this: a Friday-to-Sunday round trip to Fort Lauderdale, Fla., for Inter Miami vs. New York City FC, then Monday and Tuesday at NBC Sports’ studios in Stamford, Conn., for Premier League studio analysis. On Wednesday, he was back in Chester for the Union-Atlanta game, and on Saturday he’ll be there for Union-Nashville (7:30 p.m., Apple TV, paywalled).

Higginbotham is far from the only broadcaster on the MLS-Apple team with multiple commitments. But if you were to list who’s busiest, Higginbotham would probably rank pretty high.

The former Union local TV analyst remains a local story. The England native lives in the area with his wife, Nicole, a Philadelphian whom he met a dozen years ago while vacationing in Cape May.

Fans weren’t sure whose voices they’d hear when local broadcasts ended and Apple took them over. But it turned out that Higginbotham didn’t go far. This week’s games were his his 19th and 20th Union broadcasts of the year, all with play-by-play partner Steve Cangialosi. No other Apple crew in English has come close to that total. (Jake Zivin and Taylor Twellman, the No. 1 broadcast team, rank second with four games.)

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“This has been [my] first time traveling around the country, and I’ve been all over the place,” Higginbotham said. “You’re constantly busy, constantly seeing different teams. But yeah, without question, obviously there’s been a little bit of familiarity with [the] Philadelphia Union at times.”

While Higginbotham and Cangialosi have done a lot of Union games, they’ve done lots of others, too. Saturday will be their 46th game together this year. From the regular season to the Leagues Cup, they’ve traversed every corner of the country: Chester, Miami, Atlanta, St. Louis, Los Angeles, Seattle, and more.

“It’s been a wonderful experience, not just getting used to the traveling and things like that, but going to all the different cities, going to all the different stadiums, getting to know the different fan bases of clubs as well,” Higginbotham said. “It’s been the shortest longest season ever, if that makes sense. ... I’ve flown more this year than I had done in probably the previous 30 years, but it doesn’t feel like it. You just get into a rhythm with it.”

Higginbotham was already a media veteran when he came to the U.S. He started writing newspaper columns in 2013, and spent five years calling English Premier League games with play-by-play voice Martin Tyler.

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On both sides of the Atlantic, there’s nothing like being there, taking in the stadium atmosphere and the buzz in town before kickoff. But getting there is a different story.

“At the start of the season, it wasn’t easy for me, because I’ve never really done this to this extent where you’re traveling,” Higginbotham said. “In England, you can drive wherever you want to go.”

He didn’t travel much for the Union, because road games were called off monitors in a studio. With Apple, every game is done on site.

“I was finding myself getting to the airport with a suitcase to check in, a suit carrier to check in, didn’t have TSA [PreCheck],” Higginbotham said. “I remember speaking to Steve, and I was like, ‘How are you managing to take hand luggage on a trip?’ And he was like, ‘It’s pretty simple.’ So I learned a lot very quickly.”

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The broadcast setup is different, too. MLS stadiums have spacious booths where announcers, producers, and camera crews can spread out comfortably. English soccer stadiums have tightly packed gantries in the middle of stands, or sometimes bolted under them. At Everton’s 131-year-old Goodison Park, crews have to go up the stands, climb a ladder onto the stadium roof, then go back down a hatch to the gantry.

Higginbotham laughed as he recalled his time there.

“You’d better make sure you don’t drink too much water in some of the places, because otherwise, it can be a long walk,” he said. “You’d better make sure that every single one of your notes is taped down, or you’ve got to make sure they’re in a position where potentially the rain can’t get to them.”

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In America, Higginbotham said, “you go into a booth here, and it’s like you’re in a [suite] box … You can tell when all these stadiums have been designed, [they’ve] been designed with a lot of importance on the booths for the commentary.”

No matter which game or league he’s analyzing, Higginbotham prides himself on doing his homework. He spends lots of time studying game film and meeting with coaches, players, and journalists who cover the teams he’ll watch.

“I’m very fortunate that I love prepping,” he said. “There’s so many things you can find out by watching teams, by speaking to people, by writing certain things down that have happened during the season to them — it’s amazing how many things come out. When the referee blows his whistle, that’s when you’re like, ‘OK, it’s go time now,’ but the things that you do before the referee blows his whistle can make life a lot easier for you.”

Like every broadcaster, he wouldn’t trade any of it, even all the travel. Higginbotham came up with a fun way to record his journeys: In each new city he visits, he gets a magnet. His rec room’s fridge is now covered with them.

“The beautiful thing for me is that I was so fortunate enough to play football for as long as I did, and play at a really good level,” said the 14-year veteran of Manchester United, Stoke City, and several other English clubs. “Now I’ve been fortunate enough to come into another side of things. You can’t call it a job. … You’re going to work, or a job, whatever you want to call it, and you’re actually talking about something that you love.”

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