ESPN’s Technical Issues in Final Minute of WNBA Finals Had Fans Utterly Confused

Wednesday night’s WNBA Finals game between the Aces and the Liberty was one of the most significant games in recent memory for the league. Its dramatic finish was also very nearly marred by some rough technical issues for broadcast partner ESPN.

With 20 seconds left in the game, Las Vegas took a timeout during an offensive possession, up by one point on New York, 70–69. As ESPN analyst Rebecca Lobo broke down a strong defensive possession for the Liberty that forced the timeout with three seconds remaining on the shot clock, ESPN’s feed began to glitch, and the same five-second clip of Lobo’s analysis looped for more than a minute.

The issue clearly confused fans. What may have appeared to be a service issue for those streaming the game was clearly on ESPN’s end. As the clip posted to social media by Awful Announcing shows, ESPN’s bottom line ticker was still working as intended, despite the looping video feed.

Luckily, ESPN was able to correct the issue before the end of the timeout. Had it been a shorter 20-second timeout, fans may have missed part of a crucial possession in a one-point game with the WNBA title on the line.

The Liberty would finish out their defensive stop, but the Aces would force a miss by Courtney Vandersloot on the other end to seal its one-point win to take the series 3–1 for a second straight championship.

As the drama unfolded, both on and off the court, fans were quite confused and concerned with what they saw.