While fans often unfairly accuse announcers of rooting against their favorite team, one analyst’s bias was so blatant that the broadcast pulled him from the booth at halftime.
The Class 6 state championship between Nixa and De Smet in Missouri began with play-by-play voice James Stanley and color commentator Cam Thomas in the broadcast booth Friday night. It ended with just Stanley on the call after Thomas was removed at halftime and the Missouri State High School Activities Association issued an apology for his apparent bias.
At the start of the second half, MSHSAA Executive Director Dr. Jennifer Rukstad joined the MSHSAA.tv broadcast to address the change.
“I wanted to talk to everyone who purchased this broadcast: We needed to make a change here at halftime,” Rukstad said according to the Springfield News-Leader. “I want you to hear my personal apology about some of the things that were communicated in the first half.
“I wanted to let all of our viewers know that our members are all in equal standing. We wanted to let our viewers know that we take our broadcast seriously. We respect all our teams, no matter where they come from.”
The commentary must have been extremely one-sided for MSHSAA to make a change and issue an apology during the game. But the broadcast has been removed from MSHSAA’s website, making it difficult to find examples of bias or overly critical analysis from Thomas that warranted his removal.
A quick search on X, however, shows viewers clearly felt Thomas was calling the game with a rooting interest for De Smet, a private institution. Thomas’s analysis was considered borderline disrespectful toward Nixa, a public school. The complaints on social media were credible enough that they led to MSHSAA making a change. If social media reactions and comments are powerful enough to bring back the Snack Wrap, then you better believe it’s powerful enough to have an analyst removed from a broadcast at halftime.
There isn’t much information available regarding the analyst’s credentials. But it is surprising that a platform intending for an unbiased broadcast could have put itself in this situation during a championship game.