For the first half of today’s Liverpool-Tottenham Champions League final, TNT and B/R Live viewers in the United States had audio from the BT Sports broadcast feed calling plays like Tottenham’s conceded penalty less than one minute into the contest.
A PENALTY CALL 23 SECONDS IN ? pic.twitter.com/4gAaYBhPFG
— Bleacher Report Live (@brlive) June 1, 2019
Liverpool 1-0. Minute 2. Mo Salah ? pic.twitter.com/G45zZCFWvR
— Bleacher Report Live (@brlive) June 1, 2019
As the second half began, though, viewers noticed that something was different: the announcers.
Second half and different announcers?
— Brandon McCarthy (@BMcCarthy32) June 1, 2019
Indeed! Turner switched audio feeds, picking up the world feed instead.
They were supposed to be taking the world feed audio and took the BT Sport audio instead.
— Dan Why-Ner (@DanWeiner) June 1, 2019
for whatever reason tnt had the bt sport announcer feed in first half
— Ursus Maije (@ursusmaije) June 1, 2019
You are allowed three subs.
— William Polking (@Polking) June 1, 2019
Turner’s press release setting up their soccer coverage doesn’t mention the actual broadcast feed either way, but there’s at least one very plausible reason as to why they would have made the switch:
TNT switched announcers at halftime of the #UCLFinal2019, from England’s BT Sport crew to a blander worldwide feed. I’m guessing they didn’t like the confusion caused by BT’s in-game advertising for their own programming
— Rob Heaton (@robheaton) June 1, 2019
That confusion was apparent in at least one big way:
Being honest, I appreciated not having to listen to John Strong and the Fox terrestrial crew but this is the trade-off when you run with the English feed. I’d imagine NBC Sports wasn’t too pleased with that either.
— Rob Heaton (@robheaton) June 1, 2019
That’s definitely reason to switch over, although it’s unclear why they weren’t using the world feed to begin with.
[Update: Turner cited “audio issues” in a statement to Yahoo Sports, saying “We had audio issues during the first half of the match. Our intention was always to take the world feed, which we applied at halftime.”]
