NBC drew the ire of basketball fans Monday night as it aired Game 1 of the Western Conference finals with some noticeable audio issues.
The broadcast of the game between the Spurs and Thunder got off to a rocky start as the audio issues popped up rather quickly.
The audio sounded like someone had dropped Mike Tirico’s headset in a bucket of water, as static muffled any sort of sound from Tirico and analysts Reggie Miller and Jamal Crawford.
The audio issues continued to persist at times during the first half of the game, which ended up being a 122-115 Spurs win in double overtime.
Fans quickly took to social media to voice their frustrations with what was happening with the broadcast.
“This broadcast is ridiculous. You can’t even hear the loudest fans in the league. The Amazon / Peacock experiment has been a massive failure,” one person wrote on X.
“Video and audio issues are terrible and bad angles and blurry as well,” another person wrote.
“NBC audio needs new dilithium crystals,” a third person wrote on social media.
“Is NBC having audio problems during the Spurs/Thunder game? Anyone else experiencing some bad audio,” another confused NBA fan wrote on social media.
It was unclear what created the audio issue on the broadcast, but NBC/Peacock will be carrying the entirety of the Western Conference finals.
NBC returned to NBA coverage this season after going 23 years between carrying the sport.
The network has a media rights contract that goes through the 2035-36 season.
The NBA also has media rights deals with ABC/ESPN and Prime Video, which also began this season.
ESPN/ABC will be carrying the Eastern Conference finals, beginning on Tuesday, between the Knicks and the Cavaliers.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
