Bror-Erik Wallenius

Who is Bror-Erik Wallenius?

Bror-Erik "Bubi" Wallenius is a Finnish sports commentator who works for Finland's National Broadcasting Company YLE.

Wallenius had a great passion for sports since his childhood. When he was a little boy he organized sports competition in Kruununhaka, Helsinki, the neighbourhood he lived, and collected entrance fees from the adults who came to audience. Wallenius learn to read when he was four years old, and practised verbal expression. He recited poetry in front of the class. In the 1960s he studied languages and social sciences in the University of Helsinki. At the end of the 1970s Wallenius got job from the Swedish sports editorial staff of YLE. Before that he had worked ten years as a salesman for IBM. Wallenius' first play-by-play sportscast was women's 60 meters hurdles, which he watched from videotape, for radio.

In the 1980s Wallenius worked mainly in the Swedish language sports staff, but also did some newsflashes for Finnish language sports news Urheiluruutu. In Swedish he sportscasted the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, among others. In the beginning of 1990s he made a permanent move to the Finnish side of sport staff. The first sportcasts were mainly cross-country skiing competitions. Nowadays Wallenius is a real multi-skilled sports commentator who can commentate every sport. He usually commentates athletics together with Antero Mertaranta, basketball with a colour commentator, and skiing with color commentator too. In the skiing season 2006/2007 Wallenius himself had made a move to a colour commentator, and the main play-by-play commentator was a young Jussi Eskola. In the 1990s Wallenius also commentated ice hockey, and football so far as second half of 2000s. He was one of the main commentators in FIFA World Cups and UEFA European Football Championship. In the 2006 FIFA World Cup he wasn't anymore a play-by-play commentator, but had his own intermission show Bubin vaihtopenkki where he discussed about the events in football with many celebrity guests and football personalities. "Bubi" has also commentated many other kind of sports, like strong man competitions.