Monday night's College Football Playoff national championship is the biggest game of the season, yet ESPN's production did not seem to be in championship form.
Littered throughout the broadcast, while the stadium prepared for the national anthem, was someone frequently saying "mic check." However, things didn't stop there.
About five minutes into the first quarter, the audio of ESPN's analysts Chris Fowler and Kirk Herbstreit glitched, with a clear echo, as they discussed the game's ongoings. While the issues appeared to be fixed relatively quickly, social media is unforgiving, as many fans took to X to express frustrations with the poor quality.
"Bro does @espn have the interns in the production truck tonight? Because holy cow the audio issues and weird production quirks are worse for the @CFBPlayoff Championship game than a random 11am kickoff on ESPN+ in September," wrote one fan.
"Great bit for ESPN’s flagship product to have truly disastrous audio mixing and video issues not even five minutes into the game," said another.
"ESPN's audio is in hell to start the national championship lol," suggested another.
"ESPN have a rough start to the broadcast. Several audio issues, echoing, hot mics, very uncharacteristic," commented a fourth.
"Anyone getting some audio troubles with the ESPN feed," questioned another.
"ESPN’s audio sounds like they are broadcasting on local AM radio," said one fan.
"ESPN audio is terrible, and they broadcast the Super Bowl next year," wrote one worried fan.
© Kirby Lee-Imagn Images
Despite the frequent outcry from fans, ESPN has yet to comment on the issue as of writing.
Certainly not an ideal time to have issues on the broadcast, but fans will likely be just fine if it doesn't happen again.