SEATTLE (AP) Arlo White has broadcast soccer from London's cathedral of the sport, Wembley Stadium. He's been all over England's Premier League as a host for the British Broadcasting Corporation for the last decade.

Yet when he came to Seattle's Qwest Field for the Sounders' first Major League Soccer game last spring, White was blown away. He was even more surprised when he returned for a match in July and found the same feeling in Seattle's sold-out crowds of 30,000-plus.

"I experienced a passion, a football intelligence, a football knowledge that seems inherent in them, like it is in Europe," the 36-year-old native of Leicester, England, said Wednesday. "I came away thinking, 'I just had an authentic football experience in America.' "

Starting next month, Sounders games won't just feel like Premiership matches. They will sound like them, too.

The team introduced White as its new play-by-play man for television and radio.