The World Baseball Classic final aired on MLB Network Wednesday, as the rest of the tournament had. However, ESPN had the Spanish-language rights for ESPN Deportes. Because the U.S. was in the final, they opted to simulcast the ESPN Deportes Spanish-language telecast on ESPN2. This led to a lot of very stupid tweets from people complaining about the game being shown in Spanish on ESPN2. Here are some of the best/worst (language warning). As always, these are Real Tweets from Real People:
https://twitter.com/Chrisjamesm93/status/844755450260176903
https://twitter.com/WatchyourLanes/status/844751169239105536
When @espn broadcasts the World Baseball classic in Spanish #triggered pic.twitter.com/lWoGbKNHDD
— Michael (@Mike__MERICA) March 23, 2017
Has anyone told @POTUS that the Mexicans won….@espn 2 has went Spanish. #wbc2017
— Dean W (@AgDeano) March 23, 2017
https://twitter.com/coreyhackmann/status/844750621362327552
@espn Why the FUCK is My espn 2 in Spanish Ispeak FUCKING English charge them extra not me
— Shawn Moffett (@bsm7385) March 23, 2017
https://twitter.com/paulthepal/status/844760568946868225
https://twitter.com/LRJenkinshungry/status/844761480297771009
@ESPNStatsInfo @realDonaldTrump so im watching the wbc on espn in USA AND ITS ALL IN SPANISH. Commercials the ticker stats ..come on man
— Chris Henderson (@DevilsNoles75) March 23, 2017
@ESPNDeportes @realDonaldTrump why is espn in Spanish when you have espndeportes? Would it be in Japanese if we were playing Japan?
— Chris Henderson (@DevilsNoles75) March 23, 2017
https://twitter.com/J_Spat2508/status/844759074138832897
Has anyone told @POTUS that the Mexicans won….@espn 2 has went Spanish. #wbc2017
— Dean W (@AgDeano) March 23, 2017
Some ESPN personalities took note of the backlash:
The twitter search "ESPN Spanish" is both sad and kinda funny. And by funny… I mean bc I don't want to keep being sad
— Jorge Sedano (@Sedano) March 23, 2017
https://twitter.com/rafaelrojasESPN/status/844750770469830657
And some other fans chose this moment to complain about other English-language ESPN personalities:
ESPN2 is broadcasting the #wbc2017 in Spanish & even for those who only speak English its still more coherent than anything @BillWalton says
— Rob Lowe Sports News (@RobLoweSports) March 23, 2017
I understand the announcers in the world baseball classic better than I understand Jim Calhoun calling a game, and I only know English.
— Pat Harty (@PatHarty) March 23, 2017
It might have helped if the ESPN2 broadcast had been more clearly labeled an ESPN Deportes simulcast in programming guides. On many cable and satellite providers, it had only the game information, and all in English. Comcast threw in a “contra” instead of versus, but the rest of its game information was all in English, and DirecTV and AT&T both had solely-English descriptions for ESPN2.
Still, it should not be surprising to anyone that the English broadcast of the WBC final was on MLBN, as the entire tournament was aired there. And really, ESPN2 simulcasting ESPN Deportes is a service; it made the game available to even those who don’t get MLB Network. It’s unfortunate that people chose to complain about that instead of actually finding the English-language feed, or realizing that it wasn’t included in their package.
This does perhaps show how many people still instinctively go to ESPN for anything sports, but it also shows how many people don’t understand broadcast rights or where certain sports events are going to air. AA’s Joe Lucia summed it up nicely:
https://twitter.com/Joe_TOC/status/844758935756144641
Indeed.
About Andrew Bucholtz
Andrew Bucholtz has been covering sports media for Awful Announcing since 2012. He is also a staff writer for The Comeback. His previous work includes time at Yahoo! Sports Canada and Black Press.