Jazz radio crew loses live broadcast over spilled beer

SALT LAKE CITY, UT — As the Utah Jazz game began at Denver’s Ball Arena on Monday Night, announcer David Locke and his team were knocked off the air. A man spilled his beer all over the mixing board, where mics and monitors were plugged in. 

Locke and the rest of the crew improvised to keep Utah Jazz fans up to date. A short time later, an announcement was made on air about the mishap. 

Locke also tweeted about the incident. 

Apologies a guy just spilled a beer all over our radio engineers controls and so we are unable to start with the game on the broadcast. Hopefully up shortly.

— David Locke (@DLocke09) October 31, 2023

“The equipment may have been fried by the guy who didn’t know where to put his booze while he was paying attention to the National Anthem and kicked it all over the equipment,” recalled Locke.

On air, Locke then shared to another sports anchor back at home base, that one of the means of getting his calls back on the air was in Zoom format. Toward the end of the first quarter, they were able to broadcast the Utah Jazz game again.

Locke ended his broadcast on Monday night at Ball Arena worried about his sound engineer’s equipment. He said it appeared to be pretty well fried from the spilled beer.

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