ABC garnered massive ratings for Saturday’s SEC showdown between the Alabama Crimson Tide and Georgia Bulldogs.
That performance was almost marred by technical difficulties that could have majorly disrupted the broadcast.
During an appearance on The Dan Patrick Show Monday, Fowler admitted that Saturday’s broadcast was “almost a disaster.”
“We couldn’t hear ourselves Saturday night because we were having a technical problem. I don’t think you mean that,” Fowler said responding to a question about whether or not he’s ever been in a stadium so loud he couldn’t hear partner Kirk Herbstreit. “We had a power generator die on us. I mean, the crew did an amazing job. The generators, you rely on that. Could have been a disaster, like no broadcast. One dies and they bring in the backup (College) GameDay generator with a police escort. They get into the stadium and everything is computerized.
“Imagine a laptop dies and it doesn’t shut down properly. You gotta bring it back to life. Well, now that’s times a million with these electronic trucks. So we got up and running, but no, we could not hear ourselves in the open. For example, your mic just kind of goes out.”
Fowler added that while Bryant-Denny Stadium isn’t known for being one of the loudest in the nation, it sure seemed like it on Saturday night.
“The crowd noise was as loud as I’d heard it in Alabama, which is not, I would say, one of the loudest places on earth for football,” he said. “It’s a huge place, but it’s only the fifth biggest stadium in the SEC and it’s not known for being, I don’t think it’s one of the loudest, but they were on hand, you can use pandemonium in there with 28 nothing and again at the end the last play, so I hope we can be heard on the air. We get that complaint sometimes ‘the crowd was too loud,’ but I just screaming as loud as they possibly could some of those last calls.”
The game averaged 11.99 million viewers for ABC, making it the highest-rated college football game of the year so far.
Fowler received high praise from viewers for the way he called that instant classic of a football game. Credit due to the production team that helped keep him and Herbstreit on the air all night.
