{"id":146308,"date":"2026-02-06T17:58:30","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T17:58:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/146308\/"},"modified":"2026-02-06T17:58:30","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T17:58:30","slug":"voice-of-the-florida-state-fair-familiar-to-tampa-bay-sports-fans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/146308\/","title":{"rendered":"Voice of the Florida State Fair familiar to Tampa Bay sports fans"},"content":{"rendered":"

TAMPA, Fla. \u2014 Tucked away in the back of the Florida State Fair is a familiar voice that all Tampa Bay sports fans have grown to love over the years. It\u2019s Paul Porter, the voice of the Lightning, the Bucs, and the voice of the Florida State Fair.<\/p>\n

You could say Paul Porter was born to be in front of a microphone. He\u2019s been the public address announcer for the Lightning since their inaugural season and the press box announcer for the Bucs for the past 12 years.<\/p>\n

WATCH Voice of the Florida State Fair familiar to Tampa Bay sports fans<\/p>\n

Voice of the Florida State Fair familiar to Tampa Bay sports fans<\/p>\n

\u201cThe one word I would use is honor, it\u2019s an honor to be that, it\u2019s something that I enjoy, it\u2019s fun to do, and they always say if you enjoy your job, if you like your job, you never work a day in your life,\u201d said Porter.<\/p>\n

What many fans may not realize is that for a few weeks every year, Paul is also the voice of the Florida State Fair.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo me it\u2019s giving back to the community, it\u2019s a chance to come out and meet with your fellow residents, what a cross section of people that you find here at the fair,\u201d said Porter. \u201cA lot of people will see me and not recognize me with the voice. They will walk in and say, ‘I think that\u2019s the Lightning announcer, yea it is, I know it is.'”<\/p>\n

Sometimes, Paul\u2019s hockey lingo will even slip in with his fair announcements.<\/p>\n

\u201cPlease make your way to the showgrounds now, one minute remaining before the show,\u201d said Porter, who admits the announcement sounds a lot like, \u201cone minute remaining in the period.\u201d<\/p>\n

One time, Paul even found himself in the fair\u2019s penalty box.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey said, \u2018can you dial it down a little bit your scaring the horses,\u2019 so they actually had to reduce the volume a little bit,\u201d said Porter.<\/p>\n

Paul says when you are asked to talk about all the different types of food, taste testing becomes one of the biggest perks of the job.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love the Saratoga Chips, those are good, but I like to try new things, and the fair always gives you new things to try,\u201d said Porter.<\/p>\n

Unlike sports, Paul says there\u2019s no scoreboard at the fair.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ll always go home a winner that\u2019s for sure,\u201d said Porter.<\/p>\n

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We all take pride in where we live, and Robert Boyd takes pride in highlighting why we feel that way. Whether it\u2019s people doing good or underrepresented communities that deserve a spotlight, Robert wants to know about them. Just use the form below to reach out to Robert.
.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

How journalists battle the rise of AI fake news<\/p>\n

As News Literacy Week kicks off in partnership with Scripps News, Tampa Bay 28 reporter Michael Paluska sat down with fact-checkers at PolitiFact to learn how they combat misinformation<\/a> in the age of AI.<\/p>\n

AI is making fake news harder to spot: How journalists at PolitiFact debunk it<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA, Fla. \u2014 Tucked away in the back of the Florida State Fair is a familiar voice that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":146309,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[205,53139,8739,70800,276,9662,70801,18143,135,3670,137,136,208],"class_list":["post-146308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-abc-action-news","tag-announcer","tag-bucs","tag-florida-stae-fair","tag-hillsborough-county","tag-lightning","tag-paul-porter","tag-robert-boyd","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-bay-local-news","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news","tag-wfts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146308"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146308\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/146309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}