Did SportsCenter anchor Nicole Briscoe drop a “f***ed that one up” on live TV, or was it more “flubbed” than f-bomb (as per ESPN PR)?

It’s always interesting when someone drops a f-bomb on a sports broadcast, a reasonably regular occurrence from athletes,  coaches, fans, and even broadcast guests, but something that’s a little less common from broadcasters. To many, it sounded like that’s what SportsCenter anchor Nicole Briscoe did Saturday morning after getting confused on the ninth play of the top 10 rundown:

https://twitter.com/TexasHeat12/status/1023223382723252224

However, ESPN PR told Busted Coverage there’s a rather different interpretation of the events:

UPDATE: The SportsCenter PR guy reached out to me to clarify that Briscoe said “flubbed”, not “f*cked”. I’m not convinced. 

To these ears, that sure sounded like an f-bomb, but interpretations can vary. It’s far from the biggest deal in the world, though. While it’s rarer to see a broadcaster dropping a f-bomb than someone else in sports, it does happen, sometimes even on SportsCenter. It’s how many people talk when the cameras or mics aren’t on, and that’s going to sometimes lead to it being aired, usually unintentionally. And many of us swear when we mess something up, even if there isn’t usually a camera pointed our way.

But unlike, say, the outrage directed at Fox after their Super Bowl postgame in 2017 caught multiple player f-bombs, this is on cable and not watched by a zillion people. So it seems much less likely it leads to a big thing. It is funny to see, though. Maybe SportsCenter anchors should go to The Good Place‘s swearing approach and just drop a “Holy motherforking shirtballs!” next time.

[Busted Coverage; 2014 photo of Briscoe from ESPN]