For the first half of today’s Liverpool-Tottenham Champions League final, TNT and B/R Live viewers in the United States had audio from the BT Sports broadcast feed calling plays like Tottenham’s conceded penalty less than one minute into the contest.
https://twitter.com/brlive/status/1134898887213363200
https://twitter.com/brlive/status/1134899186925805569
As the second half began, though, viewers noticed that something was different: the announcers.
Indeed! Turner switched audio feeds, picking up the world feed instead.
https://twitter.com/DanWeiner/status/1134915229245157381
https://twitter.com/ursusmaije/status/1134915426411040774
https://twitter.com/Polking/status/1134915166804598786
Turner’s press release setting up their soccer coverage doesn’t mention the actual broadcast feed either way, but there’s at least one very plausible reason as to why they would have made the switch:
https://twitter.com/robheaton/status/1134914907688689664
That confusion was apparent in at least one big way:
https://twitter.com/robheaton/status/1134920081379454976
That’s definitely reason to switch over, although it’s unclear why they weren’t using the world feed to begin with.
[Update: Turner cited “audio issues” in a statement to Yahoo Sports, saying “We had audio issues during the first half of the match. Our intention was always to take the world feed, which we applied at halftime.”]
About Jay Rigdon
Jay is a columnist at Awful Announcing. He is not a strong swimmer. He is probably talking to a dog in a silly voice at this very moment.