Heading into a big, ranked vs. ranked matchup between Miami and South Florida in Week 3 of the college football season, The CW network was bragging that the ACC clash was its biggest college football broadcast ever.
Even we here at Awful Announcing obliged them with some hype. Unfortunately, the game didn’t live up to it. And according to Miami-based host Dan Le Batard, neither did the broadcast.
“These things are hard to do, and we’ve gotten spoiled at how professional they look everywhere, and so The CW getting in the game, it does look a little cheaper,” Le Batard said Monday on The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz. “They’re trying their best, but you can see that the broadcast quality [is worse].”
Le Batard’s point is fair. As the Power 4 conferences stock up on new teams and college football as a whole becomes a bigger business, there is arguably too much inventory for all the big TV networks to handle. In Week 1, a ranked Arizona State team saw its ESPN+ broadcast cut out for much of the second half of its home opener. The contract between The CW and the ACC in 2023 is further evidence of this new and unusual playing field.
So, while The CW was taking advantage of its luck in airing a rising Miami program and a surprise USF team, the network certainly didn’t create the same flash as a big game on ESPN or Fox. To Le Batard’s eye, even the lighting was off.
“I noticed it during the pregame show,” Le Batard added. “I’m like, that studio is not lit well enough. It’s funny. They’re giving the games, now, to some networks that aren’t quite ready yet to do the games.”
Of course, the biggest headline around The CW’s new college football coverage is the return of Thom Brennaman. The longtime MLB announcer memorably lost his job calling local Cincinnati Reds games in 2020 after a hot mic caught him using a homophobic slur on-air.
While Brennaman has risen back to national prominence by working with the LGBTQ community in Cincinnati and taking low-level broadcasting jobs over the past five years, Le Batard had a joke for him as well.
“The announcers were the disgraced Thom Brennaman and a former player with a nose ring, which I had not seen before,” Le Batard laughed on Tuesday. “We have more games than we have non-disgraced broadcasters.”
Luckily for Le Batard, the Hurricanes face rival Florida on ABC this week. The lighting figures to be brighter on Disney’s dime.
About Brendon Kleen
Brendon is a Media Commentary staff writer at Awful Announcing. He has also covered basketball and sports business at Front Office Sports, SB Nation, Uproxx and more.