Aaron Judge Cut-Ins by ESPN Controversial With College Football Crowd

Many college football fans are not happy at all.

Saturday afternoon’s sports slate is a busy one. Not only is there a full schedule of college football going on, but Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge is currently one home run shy of tying Roger Maris’s franchise and American League record 61 home runs in a single season. 

As a result, ESPN and ABC have opted to cut in to the Yes Network coverage of Yankees vs. Red Sox for each Judge at-bat during games like Clemson at Wake Forest and Auburn at Missouri. 

New York leads 4–3 on the back of a pair of home runs from Gleyber Torres and Oswaldo Cabrera, but Boston’s Nick Pivetta has held Judge in check, retiring him twice and walking him once so far.

The decision makes sense for the regular sports fan. The Yankees are arguably the most vaunted franchise in all of American sports, Judge may be baseball’s biggest star and a potential MVP chasing what many consider the true single-season home run record, due to the steroid controversy around players like Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa. However, the Venn diagram between MLB fans and college football fans is far from a perfect circle, and the CFB die-hards online are letting everyone know it during the cutaways.

It’s a big deal. But two things:

They went to the baseball audio too for nearly that entire Wake TD drive.

They ain’t doing that if he played for the Kansas City Royals. https://t.co/ZBQTm5o9T8

— Stewart Mandel (@slmandel) September 24, 2022

Do the people watching college football right now care one ounce about this Yankees record????

— Eric Mac Lain (@EricMacLain) September 24, 2022

as a Yankees fan and college football fan I personally enjoy the cut-ins to watch Aaron Judge potentially tie the Yankees' single-season home run record, however, I suspect the average Clemson-Wake Forest viewer may not share this opinion

— Rodger Sherman (@rodger) September 24, 2022

This may be a hot take, but I’d much rather watch a college football game than have ESPN cut away to Aaron Judge during a game. They could just put it on regular tv if we wanted to watch that instead of football.

— Tim Bielik (@timbielik) September 24, 2022

Me while my fellow college football media members get all up in arms about cutting into Aaron Judge ABs: pic.twitter.com/D1YHeWxQOt

— Jack Crosby (@JCrosbyCBS) September 24, 2022

Yeah, this is my read on it too...I feel like people who care about Aaron Judge + have one of these games on just to have it on wouldn't mind just switching away, but fans of these teams specifically are gonna be annoyed by it bc they mostly only care for football or the Braves https://t.co/99od8uKGpy

— Aria Gerson (@aria_gerson) September 24, 2022

New York and Boston are currently in the bottom of the fifth inning in the Bronx, so college football fans with no interest in Judge’s pursuit of history may only have one or two more at-bats to sit through on Saturday.

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