The final rounds of the NFL Draft have long been the haven of diehard football fans. If you’re sticking around to watch as your team essentially fills out the practice squad, you’re clearly there for football reasons.
Which made ESPN’s decision to deploy a OneRepublic remote performance in the middle of the sixth round a fascinating choice. Even Trey Wingo seemed a bit confused as to why it was happening as he transitioned to the concert from a John Harbaugh interview.
While it was ostensibly to raise money for charity (although there have to be much better charitable options than whatever the NFL is involved with here) it left a lot of viewers somewhere on the confused-to-outraged spectrum.
On what planet is ESPN living that they think the people watching the 6th round of the NFL Draft want to see a musical interlude from OneRepublic?
— Mikey Pizza (@SoulFooder) April 25, 2020
Who is this One Republic performance for? We’re in the 6th round of the draft. All you have left are the crazies, the diehards and The journalists. Not a single one of them wants to hear shitty music.
— DaBearsBlog (@dabearsblog) April 25, 2020
Why yes, a performance by OneRepublic is EXACTLY what I wanted to see during the #NFLDraft. How did you know?
— Jesse Gavin (@JesseGavin1) April 25, 2020
Feel bad for Prince Tega Wanogho. He’s going to have to listen to a One Republic concert whenever he wants to look back at the moment his dream came true of being drafted into the NFL.
— ßçœtt Høwętt (@SHowett_13) April 25, 2020
https://twitter.com/V_Espinola_/status/1254156195285344260
https://twitter.com/J206J/status/1254156068047015937
This last one might be the most relevant critique, too:
Seriously @espn, we’re in the 6th round of the NFL Draft, you’re behind on the pick-by-pick analysis, and now you have One Republic playing music. Everyone still watching now are football fans. Stop playing music.
— Thomas Madsen (@ThomasDKMadsen) April 25, 2020
The draft broadcast has been very good overall (especially given the circumstances under which it’s being produced), today’s coverage did have a noticeably lengthy lag between players being picked and players being talked about. (If they were talking about players at all, given the various distractions.) It’s always tougher in later rounds to keep up anyway, and there’s only so much you can say about fringe prospects, but tossing in a OneRepublic performance certainly didn’t help anything.
