While landlines are falling out of favor generally in the world these days, most press boxes still tend to have one. That can be useful if game organizers need to get a general message through to attending media about event timing or the like, but it can be a problem if a prankster finds the number. And that’s apparently what happened during Friday’s first College Football Playoff semifinal, the Cotton Bowl game (at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas) between the #1 Alabama Crimson Tide and the #4 Cincinnati Bearcats. As per Aaron Suttles of The Athletic, that pressbox received calls from multiple pranksters during the game.
Someone has gotten the phone number to the press box and keeps calling. One said he was Luke Fickell and Alabama was dumb to run slants against the Cincy secondary. The other caller called Nick Saban some not nice names.
— Aaron Suttles (@AaronSuttles) December 31, 2021
This is a good time to point out that blink-182 had a “What the hell is call ID?” line 22 years ago:
And that prank call bits have been going on for a very long time at this point, including with this Simpsons compliation:
But prank calls are apparently still a thing in 2021, and apparently some people have nothing better to do with their time than prank call press boxes.
[Aaron Suttles on Twitter; Simpsons prank call image via ScreenRant]
