When you watch a live broadcast on
—the online streaming complement to the sports network—you can sense the moment when the cable TV feed has gone to commercial and you’re seeing (and hearing) footage you normally wouldn’t. At the very end of last night’s Orange Bowl, ESPN3 ran 20 seconds of slow-motion footage of Stanford’s Jeremy Stewart running to glory over triumphant, about-to-go-to-commercial orchestral music. The announcers—color guys Ron Jaworski and Jon Gruden and play-by-play man Mike Tirico—were silent.
Stewart continued his slow sprint as I minimized the ESPN3 window on my laptop and checked my email. As the cable feed was still safely in commercial, I suddenly heard the commentators complain about the length of the game.
Here’s the full transcript of their exchange:
(?):
“You owe me dinner, bro.”
Tirico:
“Yep, no problem.”
(coughing)
Gruden:
“Go ahead Jaws, have another lozenge.”
Jaworski (celebratory):
“God dang, I made it!”
Gruden:
“My God, these are the longest games ever.”
Jaworski:
“Holy cow.”
Tirico:
“Wait ‘til Monday.”
Tirico is referring to Monday night’s BCS national championship between Auburn and Oregon, a game that ESPN has been promoting as an exciting match-up of two explosive offenses—probably a better pitch than “Tune in for a four-hour slog that will last until Tuesday morning.”
After the game, I searched “you owe me dinner bro” on Twitter to see if others had picked up on the gaffe. One guy attempted to initiate the hashtag #ESPN3FAIL , but it has yet to take off.
