SportsCenter studio (Photo by Yana Paskova/For The Washington Post via Getty Images)
ESPN was forced to abandon ‘SportsCenter’ this Friday morning due to a significant inconvenience.
A major Microsoft outage left airlines, banking systems, and medical sectors around the world in shambles, with ESPN one of the broadcasters impacted by the mishap.
The Worldwide Leader in Sports was unable to air ‘SportsCenter,’ replacing it with a video feed of ESPN Radio’s ‘Unsportsmanlike’ with Freddie Coleman and Courtney Cronin.
“A Microsoft outage happened about one o’clock in the morning Eastern Time, and Courtney, all hell has broken loose,” Coleman told viewers.
“I thought I was the only one struggling this morning when I woke up … and was like struggling to put my eyelashes on,” Cronin joked, claiming to have had the “worst morning ever.”
.@CourtneyRCronin
thought she had a bad morning… 😅 pic.twitter.com/mZ8IkKDo6j— ESPN Radio (@ESPNRadio) July 19, 2024
‘SportsCenter’ Wasn’t The Only ESPN Show Affected By The Outage
Anchor Gary Striewski made light of the situation by sharing a video of him and Randy Scott walking into work this morning.
“Good morning, America. Do you have internet? Stop bragging about it. We don’t either at Bristol HQ,” he said.
Good morning if you can see this
Here’s an update pic.twitter.com/802ShGKf8C— Gary Striewski (@garystriewski) July 19, 2024
He responded to Cronin’s tweet pertaining to the schedule change with a photo of himself and Scott on the couch.
Yes. Here is proof.
https://t.co/Esdjq4rorl pic.twitter.com/bCy5YJiatO— Gary Striewski (@garystriewski) July 19, 2024
“Everyone stop freaking out. Scott is on hold with Microsoft customer support. He’s got it under control,” he joked in another post showing Scott speaking on his phone.
Everyone stop freaking out
@RandyScottESPN is on hold with Microsoft customer support. He’s got it under control. pic.twitter.com/DzXHyYNaPj— Gary Striewski (@garystriewski) July 19, 2024
The outage also affected ‘Get Up’, as the show came on without its graphics or B-roll, which meant the hosts had to use a whiteboard.
Meanwhile, George Kurtz, the president and CEO of CrowdStrike cybersecurity firm, has linked the outage to a “defect” found in a Microsoft update. He also confirmed it wasn’t an attack, as Cronin suggested.
