...or is it just my cable system. You can barely hear the announcers.

I've noticed that too, and on other networks, especially CBS. The background noise is way up and the talk is way down. The only way I can "defeat" it is to back the volume down to the poiont where it no longer comes over in stereo, which kind of defeats the whole idea, right? I wrote the networks about a year ago on this but no one ever got back to me - unlike the Outsports crowd!