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

This was very nearly a disaster for ESPN’s WNBA Finals broadcast.

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.

This could have been pretty bad for ESPN... pic.twitter.com/l3Akgd4qBv

— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) October 19, 2023

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.

I was watching this and thought my tv was screwed up.

— Sean Rohacik (@sean_rohacik) October 19, 2023

Holy s*** so this wasn’t just me.. can I tell you I was SCREAMING at the TV.. totally thought it was AT&T’s fault.. https://t.co/A45KLiGByo

— Jori Schiraldi (@JohnSchiraldi) October 19, 2023

When ESPN fixed that time loop before play reset pic.twitter.com/LokeAO2ViK

— profloumoore (@loumoore12) October 19, 2023

ESPN should be embarrassed by the poor quality of this broadcast. Stuck in a loop with 20 seconds left in the #WNBAFinals

— Christopher Keizur (@chriskeizur) October 19, 2023

Bro ESPN was on an about 7 second repeat loop for a bit there at the end of Game 4. Imagine if something big was missed. What a disaster that would have been.

— Dylan Sandas (@Dylan_Sandas) October 19, 2023