Sports during a pandemic has created unique scenarios for broadcasters calling games remotely and in empty stadiums. Earlier this week, the Memphis Grizzlies radio crew uniquely called their game on 92.9 ESPN in front of fans, but with different teams.
Many local radio broadcasts have avoided team travel, opting to call road games from the home booth to utilize their equipment while creating a familiar setting.
Most football and baseball stadiums aren’t shared, so there is no concern of another scheduled event taking the field while the announcers are there calling a road game. But a number of basketball arenas share the court with college teams and the Grizzlies radio crew ran into that scenario earlier this week, creating an odd setting for a broadcast.
While Eric Hasseltine and Elliot Perry were at their home arena to call the Grizzlies road game in San Antonio, not only were fans in the seats, but the Memphis Tigers basketball team was on the court for their matchup with Central Florida.
“It’s not easy,” Hasseltine told Clayton Collier of Local Memphis. “You could hear when they were doing something well. And they were doing a lot of things well, so there was a lot of noise.”
Hasseltine’s radio partner Elliot Perry is not just an analyst, he’s also a Grizzlies minority owner and former star basketball player with the Memphis Tigers. Despite the distraction, he didn’t mind getting the chance to watch his former college team play live. Personally, I have enough trouble focusing on the NFL RedZone channel when it goes to a split screen, trying to call one game off a monitor while watching another live can’t be easy.
Brandon Contes is a former reporter for BSM, now working for Awful Announcing. You can find him on Twitter @BrandonContes or reach him by email at Brandon.Contes@gmail.com.
