Halftime Show Drowns Out CBS NFL Analysts

CBS Sports
CBS Sports analysts attempt to make themselves heard of the AFC Championship's halftime musical performance (Image credit: CBS Sports)

Whether it was the result of a miscommunication between Arrowhead Stadium and CBS Sports or a more nefarious reason, we may never know what caused CBS Sports’ halftime show during its coverage of the AFC Championship game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Cincinnati Bengals to be drowned out by the stadium’s halftime performance by country music singer Walker Hayes.

As “NFL on CBS” commentators James Brown, Boomer Esiason, Phil Simms, Bill Cowher and Nate Burleson began analyzing first half play in their set near the field, Hayes' band began its performance. Viewers  could see the band’s speakers directly behind the set as the music began to overwhelm the on-set commentary. 

The analysts seemed to take it all in stride, trying to ignore the cacophony directly behind them—until they didn’t.

“I have no idea what you just said,” Boomer Esiason said in response to Nate Burleson “I can’t hear a thing that anybody said.”

At one point, Brown suggested using sign language to get their point across. 

Dennis Baxter, audio columnist for TV Tech, called the idea of putting commentators on the sideline "stupid."

"There were 5 open microphones in front of a speaker cluster plus football venues are notoriously loud and have poor acoustics," he said. "I feel sorry for the poor audio mixers who did not get a real rehearsal to set levels and I guarantee those speakers were a surprise to someone although there should have been a drawing somewhere. I think the producers should be replaced next season for sheer stupidity. Sacrificing audio for a camera angle! Chroma a key?"

The incident lit up social media, including one comment from Twitter: “Not sure if i missed a good walker hayes concert or a bad halftime show.”

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Tom Butts

Tom has covered the broadcast technology market for the past 25 years, including three years handling member communications for the National Association of Broadcasters followed by a year as editor of Video Technology News and DTV Business executive newsletters for Phillips Publishing. In 1999 he launched digitalbroadcasting.com for internet B2B portal Verticalnet. He is also a charter member of the CTA's Academy of Digital TV Pioneers. Since 2001, he has been editor-in-chief of TV Tech (www.tvtech.com), the leading source of news and information on broadcast and related media technology and is a frequent contributor and moderator to the brand’s Tech Leadership events.