There have been a lot of infamous hot mic moments over the years, with announcers creating controversy from comments they made when they didn’t realize they were live. The latest appears to come from a Division III men’s lacrosse clash between Pennsylvania schools Gettysburg College and Muhlenberg College on Saturday.
That game, a 10-9 overtime road win for the Bullets against the Mules, was streamed on the Centennial Conference’s website. But it no longer appears among the archived broadcasts there. And the reason why is likely what appears to be a clip from that broadcast that was shared Monday on social media, with audio (presumably of the commentators; it’s unclear who they were) of an explicit discussion about a sexual encounter airing during the halftime break. (Language warning.)
Absolute commentary tragedy coming out of the D3 lacrosse scene this week #FreeSpeech2025 pic.twitter.com/iKM29dgxyi
— Paxton “Peaky” Kensington (@PeakyKensington) March 31, 2025
That clip was subsequently discussed all over social media, and in writeups from Barstool Sports, Whiskey Riff, The Liberty Line, Outkick, and more. But the same video clip is the source for all of those writeups, and it seems to be the source for most of the social media discussions as well.
There doesn’t seem to have been much discussion of the incident on social media during Saturday’s game, or immediately afterwards. And with the archived broadcast no longer up, it’s impossible to verify from the outside that this was indeed aired.
However, there have been many hot mic incidents over the years, from Thom Brennaman to Jon Wertheim and beyond. And there have definitely been lots of those in the high school and lower-division college ranks. And it’s conceivable that there weren’t a ton of people watching this DIII lacrosse broadcast, especially during halftime, and that maybe even some of those who did catch it didn’t go post about it.
And while the airing of sexual discussions this explicit has been rarer to see than hot mic incidents in general, that has happened. A similar conversation was even aired on a Fox U.S. Open golf broadcast in 2018. And one respondent to this video clip even admitted a similar close call with a hot mic conversation in the past:
Mics were on and rolling…we were saying anything and everything you could imagine two college idiots saying…noticed the mics on….thought it was the end…. Volume turned all the way down, therefore , mics didn’t pick up a thing… graduated a few years later . Thank god …
😂😂— J (@Chett_33) April 1, 2025
This particular broadcast moment has certainly gone viral. And it’s the latest reminder of the importance of being careful around microphones. A lot of conversations meant to be off-air don’t wind up staying that way.
