Walker Hayes drowns out CBS' AFC championship halftime show, and Twitter has jokes
CBS was not ready for Sunday's AFC championship halftime show.
When the Kansas City Chiefs and Cincinnati Bengals left the field for the break, the network's studio crew took over the broadcast from the sideline at Arrowhead Stadium. Meanwhile, country artist Walker Hayes took center stage to entertain the Kansas City crowd.
As host James Brown introduced the studio show, Hayes started his set, with a stack of speakers placed directly behind the CBS desk. Brown didn't stand a chance.
Someone at CBS forgot to check halftime show speaker levels... pic.twitter.com/aZ4b7eOAsZ
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) January 30, 2022
This is awkward
By the time Phil Simms, Bill Cowher, Nate Burleson and Boomer Esiason debated the merits of blitzing Patrick Mahomes and doubling Ja'Marr Chase, Hayes was in full throat singing about date night and Applebees. Nobody at home could make out the analysis, much less the guys sitting directly in front of the speaker stack.
“I have no idea what you just said,” Esiason responded to Burleson when it was his turn to talk.
By the time they wrapped, Brown jokingly resorted to sign language.
Twitter, of course, took notice. Simms' account included.
— Phil Simms (@PhilSimmsQB) January 30, 2022
Thank you Arrowhead for drowning out Phil Simms
— Zach Harper (@talkhoops) January 30, 2022
Not sure I've ever heard a halftime of such a huge broadcast with this kind of issue of getting totally drown out by the musical act. Oof.
— Bruce Feldman (@BruceFeldmanCFB) January 30, 2022
i think that this halftime show is really good
— Jon Bois (@jon_bois) January 30, 2022
Could we get the music in Arrowhead a little louder over the halftime report?
— Dan O'Sullivan (👻 NOW *LIVE* ON GHOST 👻 ) (@osullyville) January 30, 2022
shout to the chiefs personnel for setting the speakers up directly behind the halftime show
— Bill Hanstock (no holidays) (@sundownmotel) January 30, 2022
What do *peaking out mic* BLITZA PATRICK MAHOMES?!! ARGHALGARHA HAAHAHAHADFGKAHDFOHAEW:FJQWOE
— 𝗝𝗢𝗛𝗡 𝗕𝗔𝗥𝗖𝗛𝗔𝗥𝗗🔴⏯ (@JohnBarchard) January 30, 2022
The halftime show is like when you’re on the phone and somehow your music continues playing while you’re talking
— Chris Branch (@cbranch89) January 30, 2022
The broadcast proved to be quite the challenge for the folks in charge of closed captioning.
The closed captioning during that segment was a whole lot of [INAUDIBLE] pic.twitter.com/AqCRXdaOwF
— Timothy Burke (@bubbaprog) January 30, 2022
Halftime wasn't the first audio miscue on Sunday.
Ashanti was tabbed to sang the pregame national anthem. But thanks to some technical issues, you might not have known it.
Some technical issues on the national anthem. Sorry, Ashanti! pic.twitter.com/R7iDv4R9xe
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) January 30, 2022
Thankfully for CBS, there were no postgame audio issues after Cincinnati's come-from-behind win to advance to the Super Bowl.
"Hello, everyone" Brown said while introducing postgame coverage. "You can hear us this time, thank you very much."
