Getty Image / Luke Hales
ESPN got the perfect matchup to televise on Sunday Night Baseball, as they had the sport’s two biggest draws in the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees on display Sunday night.
But, what should’ve been a clean broadcast of a 3-0 Red Sox win over the struggling Yankees was widely criticized on Twitter for its choppiness, interviews, and overall quality.
It’s fair to note that the third man of the typical Sunday Night Baseball booth, David Cone, was not in the booth as he was dealing with illness, but they still had PBP man Karl Ravech and color commentator Eduardo Perez in the booth. That didn’t help.
There were a few issues fans had with the broadcast. One of the biggest is the in-game interviews that networks seem insistent on making ballplayers do while they’re in the field. Just last Sunday night, Astros shortstop Jeremy Pena let a pop fly drop in the infield while being interviewed, and fans hate them.
On Sunday night, ESPN was once again back at it with the in-game interviews, and fans were ticked.
“These interviews during the game need to stop. Ben Rice just had an entire at-bat and it was on a split screen with Alex Cora talking over it. ESPN will do almost anything to avoid having to actually focus the broadcast on the game. They’ll pull out every gimmick they can think of to distract the viewer from what’s actually happening. It’s like they don’t think the fans tuning in are interested in watching baseball,” @Rational_Yankee said.
That wasn’t the only in-game interview they did. ESPN also had David Cone call into the booth during the game. I get what they were going for, but the audio quality was terrible and took away from the actual game on the field.