The Auburn Tigers beat the Kentucky Wildcats handily on Saturday, but many TV viewers didn’t get to watch most of the second half. (Jordan Prather-Imagn Images)
(IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect / Reuters)
ABC generously spared Kentucky fans from having to watch the entirety of a rare lopsided home loss.
The network’s feed abruptly cut out with more than 12 minutes left in top-ranked Auburn’s emphatic 94-78 victory at Rupp Arena.
With Auburn already comfortably ahead by 16 points, center Johni Broome spun around his defender on and went up for a left-handed layup. TV viewers never saw Broome’s shot roll in because the screen went blue and then ABC cut to commercials.
When ABC returned from an extended commercial break, its studio crew explained that there were “technical difficulties at Rupp Arena” and that viewers would see the Kansas-Texas Tech game airing on ESPN until the issues were fixed. The network eventually switched instead to pregame coverage of the NHL game between the Pittsburgh Penguins and Boston Bruins.
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The broadcast of the Kentucky-Auburn game eventually returned, not on ABC but on ESPN News, with just over two minutes remaining and the Tigers comfortably ahead by 14. Play-by-play announcer Dan Shulman told viewers that a generator at Rupp Arena had caught on fire and that it had knocked the broadcast off the air for “a long, long time.”
The reaction on social media from those watching Auburn-Kentucky was about what you’d expect. There was confusion, anger and plenty of jokes:
