After a whirlwind 24 hours, Aaron Judge signed a contract to remain with the New York Yankees earlier this week. The news happened early in the morning, and WFAN afternoon co-host Evan Roberts said that was no excuse for how poor the coverage was from MLB Network.
“They didn’t go live with it,” co-host Craig Carton said. “He reported it on social media, and they didn’t put him on TV for more than an hour after he had broken the story.”
When told that MLB Network simply put a scroll along the bottom of the screen alerting viewers to the news, Roberts was flabbergasted.
“Are you kidding me?,” Roberts asked. “It’s bad enough that SNY bad-mouthed Jacob DeGrom at the end and then decided to play a…tribute video right before our show. I don’t like the badmouthing of Jake, but at least they gave you live coverage. SNY gave you something. You’re telling me MLB Network didn’t give you any coverage?”
When Chris McMonigle mentioned the news dropped at 5:15 AM PT, Roberts didn’t care.
“Wake someone up,” he countered. “You’re not a real network. If you are — and you can tell your friends at MLB Network — if you wanna be a real network — and see now I gotta throw bouquets at SNY. As much as I didn’t like their coverage, they gave you breaking news coverage. Great job, SNY.”
McMonigle countered by telling Roberts that MLB Network hit the air at 9:30 AM ET, which is 6:30 AM PT, when they were previously slated to start coverage at 11:00 AM ET. When he then compared the difference in circumstances to that of the DeGrom news happening at 7:00 PM ET, Roberts shouted “it doesn’t matter!”, saying MLB Network should have been on top of the Judge news.
“What were they playing? Major League? A League of Their Own? B.S. network. Not a real network. Tell your friends,” continued Roberts. “They are not a real network if they can’t get breaking news when the biggest free agent signs a contract.”
Carton said the network put a scroll on the screen with the news of Judge’s signing, which Roberts concluded was not enough.
“Tell MLB Network to call our friends at SNY and they’ll give ’em a lesson on how you just break into whatever coverage you have, and you give live coverage. Even if the coverage is bad, at least they’re giving it to you.”
