As the Cleveland Cavaliers took a two-game lead in the first round of the NBA playoffs against the Orlando Magic, several fans of the teams were incensed because of their inability to access the game. On Monday night, fans within the home marketplaces for the Cavaliers and Magic were blacked out from watching the game on NBA.TV both through the cable channel and utilizing an NBA League Pass subscription. Ken Carman, morning show host on 92.3 The Fan, was among the people affected by this circumstance.
When Carman was doing the preview show for the NFL Draft, he turned his television from NBA.TV to another channel and then checked social media where he saw complaints. From there, he placed his television back on NBA.TV to discover that he too was blacked out and unable to watch the game, despite being a regular cable subscriber amid an era predicated by hastened cord cutting. Carman then asked if there were people who had the Bally Sports app and were also blacked out from watching the contest. Carman’s co-host Anthony Lima then explained he had learned of an issue with the geotracking that was not recognizing the locale where devices from which users were trying to access the game.
“It seems like they were there, and there were people who were not cable subscribers who said that they were blacked out, and then there were people who said they had Fubo,” Carman explained. “So I have somebody here who says that they have Fubo and they were able to watch it, but I know for a fact there were people who said they had Fubo and they were not able to watch that game last night. That is a miss.”
Lima continued by stating that he had never before received such a deluge of texts pertaining to a big game in the Cleveland area. People were evidently wondering how they would be able to access the game, leading some users to experiment utilizing VPNs to try and watch.
“I saw people, influencers, making screaming videos, and I understand the frustration, but we know – me and you know – we have to be able to have every game available to us, so that’s why we get cable,” Lima said, addressing Carman in his comments. “I don’t know what to tell people who somehow, someway – unless there was a legitimate mistake made – did people think they were going to be able to get NBA.TV?”
“It is the internet – you can’t fix that type of mistake quickly?,” Carman replied. “That’s just a solid bleep you to everybody for the night.”
