The opening game of the Yankees-Red Sox wild-card series had plenty of exciting moments in a tight ballgame. One thing less exciting, according to some of those who were viewing from home, was the audio on ESPN’s feed.
During Game 1 from Yankee Stadium, ESPN’s feed made a loud static-like noise a number of times, particularly when the crowd cheered in exaltation.
One moment in particular viewers pointed to was in the top of the fourth inning with the Red Sox threatening with runners on second and third base and two out.
But Max Fried escaped the jam with a strikeout when he struck out Jarren Duran with a high breaking pitch.
The Yankee Stadium crowd was excited in unison, and with the cheering came some extra loud noises for TV and streaming viewers to contend with.
Not shockingly, folks took to social media to complain about their feelings.
“Can someone please fix the static on those ESPN mics?” Boston.com journalist Conor Ryan wrote alongside an image of a distressed Joaquin Phoenix from the 2019 film “Joker.”
“This ESPN broadcast of Sox/Yanks is comically poor quality. Bitrate choppy and audio feed a mess,” wrote one user.
“ESPN’s feed is genuinely dogs–t’,” wrote an irate Yankees fan. “The video quality is bad—a lot of weird flickering and staggered frames, random s–t in the audio. It’s not what ya want.”
“LFG Max” wrote another after the Fried strikeout. “@espn fix the audio. We want to hear the crowd not static…”
“Broadcast literally looks like it’s lagging in real time with horrible cracking audio, added another. “Lag so bad it’s giving motion sickness! Anyone else?”