People will often believe anything they’re told by an apparent authority figure with cameras rolling. It’s a conceit that’s been used in everything from CBC’s Rick Mercer‘s “Talking To Americans” segments to Funny or Die’s Billy Eichner‘s “Billy On The Street” bits, and ABC late-night host Jimmy Kimmel has been using it as well with a segment titled “Lie Witness News.” One of Kimmel’s most recent bits along those lines went to Oakland to fool Golden State Warriors fans, and did so quite effectively:

Yeah, some of that’s pretty good, including  Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard not starting for the Warriors because “He don’t seem like he does well under pressure,” it being a possibility that Stevie Nicks could take down Fleetwood Mac bandmate Lindsey Buckingham with strength and experience, and “Will the Cavs’ loss of Zayn Malik affect the One Direction defense?” Granted, you could probably do this for every team in the country, though, so it’s not like Warriors’ fans are particularly unique here. (We also don’t know how many of these happened where the fan caught on, as those weren’t shown.) Still, these are some decent laughs, and they show how tempting it is to try and present yourself as an expert even when you’re not sure of the facts presented to you. Who knows, maybe Cleveland really is using a tri-tip defense…

[The Buzzer]

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.

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