Spoken profanity on broadcasts often happens, whether it’s picked up from the crowd or athletes on field mics or heard during interviews. And obscene gestures sometimes wind up televised as well, with the camera locking onto someone who then throws up a finger. (Or even with on-broadcast people flipping a double bird, as Eli Manning did once on a ManningCast.)
But it’s more unusual to see televised profane signs or shirts, as the profane information’s there from the start. It does happen from time to time, but often leads to a quick cut away. And the latest example of that came during the James Madison Dukes-Marshall Thundering Herd football game Thursday, where ESPN showed a Marshall fan in a green “Game ******* Day!” shirt, then quickly cut away to a test pattern before returning to the game feed:
ESPN's censors couldn't cut the signal fast enough… 😂 pic.twitter.com/vxQVDHW8gL
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) October 19, 2023
As noted in many discussions of on-air profanity (spoken or visual), there isn’t really much of a Federal Communications Commission issue here with this game being a cable broadcast on ESPN. It is possible to complain about obscenities on cable, but there usually aren’t many complaints there (Manning’s aforementioned dual birds drew only three complaints).
And even broadcast networks don’t get too much attention (especially if they offer a quick apology) from the FCC outside of massive events like the Super Bowl. (And even there, wardrobe issues tend to draw more attention.) The real thing to worry about from a fine standpoint is misuse of emergency access tones. So the concern here was probably more about offending viewers than actually drawing FCC punishment.
But it is still funny to see how quickly ESPN went away from this, even going to the test pattern first before cutting back to the game. Especially as this shirt was sort of promoting their college football show! (Which might just wind up with its own f-bombs one of these days, especially after the addition of Pat McAfee.)
[Awful Announcing on Twitter]
