One of the less exciting parts of being a professional play-by-play commentator is getting a cringe-worthy script and being told to act excited about a show you do not even watch or a product you don’t even use so you can please your boss and get back to calling the game. It is such a low standard of ad-driven scripted sports broadcasts on Tuesday at Yankee Stadium that led fans to question TBS’ broadcasting standard.
But with the cringiest promo, TBS just took bad sports broadcasting to a whole new level.
Bob Costas started talking about how full Yankee Stadium was last night during Game 1 of the ALDS between the New York Yankees and the Cleveland Guardians. He then said, “We didn’t know if this game was going to be played or not.”
Anyone who hears that sentence would be interested, of course. What kind of tragedy or misfortune would be there risking the safety of fans or players would have had to happen for an MLB playoff game not to be played? Everyone watching TBS was probably on the edge of their seats because this could be a big story.
Costas gave it to Lauren Shehadi, and no one could have imagined how cringe-worthy their TV screen was about to get thanks to the stupidity of TBS.
Why almost did they stop the game? Dragon, of course. When everyone in baseball saw that ad, they all put their palms together. It makes sense that they would need to make a promo like this. WarnerMedia Entertainment owns both TBS and HBO, so it makes sense that they’re trying to promote each other. However, this idea worked as well as the Colts’ fake punt against the Patriots in 2015.
The promo that TBS though would make Yankees-Guardians Game 1 interesting instead ended in making it laughable.
When Shehadi tosses it back to Costas, you could hear the lack of excitement in his voice. He could hardly act like he was having fun. He said, “Don’t worry, folks,” and then went back to calling the game. It looked like Costas and his co-commentator Ron Darling were eager to forget what they had just been asked to do and start focusing on the game. Costas is one of the best sportscasters who have ever been on TV, and everyone in baseball felt bad for him because of what he had to do.
But this dragon isn’t some unfamiliar, well-reviewed show that just needs a larger audience to take off. This is House of the Dragon, which is a prequel to the biggest television show of the last 20 years. The promo could be intended to force ALDS viewers watching that game to start talking about the dragon show and got a few more people to start watching. Now, people who had never heard of the show have a bad feeling about it. Such a misadventure in the middle of a serious game took them by surprise, showed them the worst graphics, made them to panic, and thought how embarrassing TBS ads could be.
In the end, the Yankees won that game by a score of 4-1. This Thursday, TBS will also show Game 2 but outrage over its broadcasting standards continues to grow.
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