WNBA broadcast hit major technical snag

Audio feeds in different languages can be great, but you probably don’t want to listen to two at the same time. That’s what happened for many during ABC’s broadcast of the Seattle Storm-Indiana Fever WNBA clash Sunday.

This problem wasn’t on every single local affiliate. But viewers from areas as widespread as San Antonio, TX, Washington, D.C., and Watertown, NY (which have ABC affiliates all owned by different companies) discussed running into that issue on social media, and talked about it at significantly different times, suggesting this was a long-running problem. Here’s some of that conversation, and an example of how this sounded from San Antonio, which also seemed to have some English echo:

Viewers in various regions have reported hearing both English and Spanish audio on the ABC broadcast of the Storm-Fever WNBA game.

Here’s an example of this from the San Antonio ABC affiliate (KSAT): pic.twitter.com/fyCjFrYiOS

— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) August 18, 2024

@MediacomCable @MediacomSupport I’m watching the Fever – Storm WNBA game on ABC and have a Spanish broadcast coming in with the game along with the English in the 31707 area. Can this be fixed ? It’s fine in the Washington DC area … it’s really annoying lol.

— Manifester21 (@manifester21) August 18, 2024

@InformNNY Tell your National feed to fix the broadcast of the Fever vs Storm game. There’s Spanish audio playing over the English audio.

— Patricia Ryan Curry (@pryancurry) August 18, 2024

if you’ve ever wanted to learn English and Spanish at the same time, go to ABC rn for the Storm-Fever game

— dylan (@dylangonzalez21) August 18, 2024

If anyone is interested they’re showing the Indiana Fever vs Seattle Storm on abc with both the English and Spanish broadcast playing at the same time over each other. Interesting strategy

— Chris (@TheRealCRam) August 18, 2024

That’s certainly not ideal. And it’s unfortunate that it happened on quite a high-profile WNBA game, and one that saw Caitlin Clark break the league record for assists by a rookie (and receive praise from Isiah Thomas):

Caitlin Clark sets the WNBA single-season rookie assists record! 🏀🔥🔥🔥pic.twitter.com/ivVeXl9q9m

— The Comeback (@thecomeback) August 18, 2024

Caitlin Clark : 23 points on 9-19 shooting, 3-10 from 3, 2-2 from the FT line, 5 rebounds, 9 assists & 2 blocks in 36 minutes (Broke Ticha Penicheiro’s WNBA rookie record for most assists in a single season) pic.twitter.com/vEfzeAca9T

— Lee Harvey (@MusikFan4Life) August 18, 2024

Let it be known that only a special few in our game’s history can score while assisting teammates. https://t.co/3UkKLxD7O2

— Isiah Thomas (@IsiahThomas) August 18, 2024

This was the last WNBA game this regular season set for an ABC broadcast. But ABC and other ESPN networks will broadcast the WNBA playoffs. Hopefully this issue won’t reoccur then.