Back together again: David James, Brian Dunseth reunite on screen for RSL's home tilt with San Diego

DJ and Dunny will be back together on TV for Real Salt Lake's first-ever home tilt against MLS expansion side San Diego FC on MLS Season Pass on Apple TV.

If absence makes the heart grow fonder, then imagine how Brian Dunseth and David “DJ” James feel.

When Major League Soccer took over each league team’s local TV contract to bundle into a single plan — the one that Apple would sign to a 10-year deal worth a reported $1.5 billion — it also split up Real Salt Lake’s emerging star partnership.

Dunseth was among the legions hired on by MLS to be one of the faces of the Apple broadcasts, teaming most often with Los Angeles-based Max Bretos to call games across the west (with a few exceptions).

James, meanwhile, left the TV booth he had grown accustomed to and moved a few doors down to radio, where he replaced Bill Riley as RSL’s radio broadcasts switched from ESPN 700 to KSL Newsradio and the Zone Sports Network alongside the new deal.

On Saturday, the dynamic duo will be back together. James will join Dunseth on the call of the club’s home match against San Diego FC (7:30 p.m. MT, MLS Season Pass on Apple TV), reuniting the two close friends — even if on a one-night-only (for now) status.

“I would’ve called the game with anybody,” James said. “But the chemistry, the relationship, the familiarity were big. Yes, it will be on Apple; but I’l be sitting in the same booth, the same stadium, next to the same guy, looking at the same field … There will be a lot of familiarity.

“We’ve been doing a weekly show (Talkin’ Real on KMYU) for a while now … so I think the relationship is pretty natural with Dunny.”

In Year 3 of the league’s decade-long deal, Bretos and Dunseth have worked themselves to be one of the top broadcast groups in MLS. At the very least, the duo — with one based in Salt Lake City and the other in Los Angeles — can certainly make an argument as a premium partnership on the West Coast.

But before Dunny and Max, there was Dunny and DJ, a pair of voices that Salt Lake soccer fans knew well — and many still do, after the duo called a handful of Utah Royals FC matches together last year on KMYU.

There’s no guarantee that Saturday’s reunion tour will be anything but a one-night-only stop. But Dunseth wouldn’t be opposed if it wasn’t.

“I may be extremely biased with David James, because we traveled the country together for so many years as part of the RSL broadcasts,” Dunseth told Salt City Soccer. “And while I absolutely love me my tio Max, and I’ve probably called as many or more games with Max over the course of my career, the moment that I found out that Max was not going to be able to be on the broadcast, I was intrigued to see who I’d get paired with. It happened a few times last year.

“I got a text about David James, and I said, absolutely. He was one of the best, in my humble opinion — and if not the very best — local play-by-play broadcasters in Major League Soccer prior to this Apple deal. For him to get his opportunity to showcase his talent, which is extraordinarily high, I couldn’t think of a better partner at Real Salt Lake, at that home, and against his beloved San Diego sports team. It seems more fitting.”

Perhaps even more fitting is that RSL’s first match against Major League Soccer’s 30th team, the one from San Diego, will feature the voices of two Southern California products — and a longtime San Diego County native who made his way to the mountains after a collegiate career up the coast at UC Santa Barbara.

You can bet there will be at least one reference to James’ Gauchos — possibly in reference to San Diego’s Ema Boateng, another Gaucho alum — in Saturday’s broadcast, too.

“DJ is world-renowned for figuring out a way to get UCSB in almost every broadcast, to a much annoying effect,” Dunseth said with a laugh. “But two Southern California transplants calling a game, in such an extraordinary start to the season for San Diego, I think it’s fitting and extremely exciting.”

Don’t expect a hometown broadcaster — in either direction, both by birth and the one that has adopted him since he left his birthplace at 17 years old for college, and eventually made his way to Utah. But then again, that hasn’t been part of James’ M.O. throughout his broadcasting career.

RSL fans knew that for years. They’ll get to know it again, at least one more time Saturday.

“That was something I really appreciated about (legendary Utah Jazz broadcaster) Hot Rod Hundley,” James said. “Hot Rod loved the Jazz … But Hot Rod mostly called games because he loved basketball. And he loved the accomplishments of all the athletes, whatever they were doing.

“Hot Rod always called games with a certain amount of passion, and I think that is why we watch sports.”

Listen to DJ and Dunny react to the news on Salt City FC on Spotify or anywhere else you listen to podcasts.