Sometimes, ESPN makes it far too easy for us to poke fun at them, and this is one of those cases. During virtually every Monday Night Football broadcast, ESPN shows overhead shots of the host city and some of its landmarks. I’ve always assumed that these were live shots from the Goodyear blimp, and I’ve never had a reason to believe otherwise, that is, until now.
According to ESPN AFC South blogger, Paul Kuharsky, viewers of the game came to ESPN’s AFC South blog to complain about outdated shots of the city, and even one shot of the skyline of Charlotte, North Carolina. Here’s what an ESPN spokesperson told Kuharsky about the gaffes:
“The Charlotte aerial was an inadvertent mistake. It should not have aired. We apologize that it was part of the telecast.
“The scenics of Jacksonville that were used during ‘Monday Night Countdown’ were shot the night of the previous MNF game there in late October. We did not have a crew shooting scenics Monday. There were no graphic or audio mentions indicating the shot was live, though we understand viewers may have been under this assumption.”
To say the least, the missteps by ESPN tend to be comical, but this one just appears to be cheap. As the spokesperson said, the outdated shots of Jacksonville were filmed earlier in the season when Jacksonville hosted the Baltimore Ravens on Monday Night Football.
Somehow I believe that this won’t be happening again. It’s embarrassing, to say the least, for ESPN, the biggest all sports network in the world, to be recycling images and showing clips of a city 3 states away. While a bit perplexing, ESPN isn’t exactly known for their geography prowess.
