The Josh Innes Show - Peacock May Be Innovating The Football Viewing Experience

Episode Date: January 7, 2026

Apparently, Peacock may offer viewers the option to adjust the audio sound on the the broadcast. By that, I mean you can eliminate announcers while still hearing the crowd. Is this a true innovation? Does anyone care? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

All right. Here's a story for you. Headline from Awful Announcing. Peacock adding enhancements that allow fans to mute announcers and control crowd noise. Huh. Let's see here. This doesn't sound like a very original concept because I'm fairly certain that there have been other places where you can do this. Like when I used to have the, it was either the NBA pack. It was MLB. When I had MLB extra innings and I had it on PlayStation. you could turn off the announcers, and I believe you could turn off the announcers, and you can switch from the TV broadcast to the radio broadcast, gave you like four different options. So, like, I don't understand why this is some sort of brand new concept that people are acting as if as, like, a world-changing thing.

But let's play a couple commercials, and let's read this story and see what makes this so different and so fabulous. Let's see here. All righty. So, Peacock could be on the precipice of a streaming innovation that would completely personalize the fan experience. The NBC-owned streamer announced the CES conference in Las Vegas that it will integrate new Dolby products into its platform, enhancing the sights and sounds of the games. According to a report by Joe Lemire of Sports Business Journal, the changes will provide fans, quote, more vivid and balanced colors, immersive sound, and clear dialogue, even when there's loud background or ambient noise. Now, that I'd be for.

Give me some more vivid and balanced colors, make it look as good as possible. That I'm all for. One interesting detail is that these broadcast enhancements could lead to features where viewers can control the audio level for a game's announcers and the ambient crowd noise. Now, that is a fair innovation because that was not what was offered on MLB extra innings. But on MLB extra innings, you could control whether or not you heard the home railway TV or radio, which I think would be a fun thing to offer. I think that'd be cool as hell if you're watching.

a game on Peacock and you'd like to have the opportunity to hear, you know, Mark Vandermere call a Texan's game. Like, I think that'd be a cool thing. I don't know if they'll ever do that or offer that. That seems to be a tedious thing to do, and they did, dude, but they did it for MLB extra endings and it was great because I'm a nerd that likes to listen to the radio broadcast over the TV. So, like, I would listen to the Cardinals games and I would flip it over to the radio broadcast part of it. The problem with that is, like, radio broadcast might have bad mixes. So, like, you might be watching a game on TV with the radio call on it, and it could be a broadcast where they don't really emphasize the crowd mic, so it's a very

kind of dull broadcast that's kind of odd to watch. But I dug it. I was all for that. I'd be for this. With AC4, the personalization of the audio, we can let customers do what they prefer with a very simple control in our own UI, he said, and maybe let them turn off commentary completely if that's what they want. I don't know who's going to do that. That's fine if people want to do that. Have you ever tried that? Like just watching a game on mute?

Now this wouldn't be mute, of course. This would be watching a game with just crowd noise. But people think they want that until they actually do it. And then you have no insights. You have no breakdown of what's happening in the play. You don't know why there's a review happening. People think they want that shit. And then they don't.

At the end of the day, people need announcers. Games have tried it in the past where we're doing an announcerless game. It's weird and no one likes it. So, like, you can call that an innovation and say, wow, we're giving you the opportunity to do blank. Great. People don't want that. People just want to watch the ball game. They may hate the announcers and bitch about the announcers.

Like, look, there's a lot of announcers I hate. But at the end of the day, I'm not going to watch the game on fucking mute. And I'm not going to watch it with just ambient crowd noise. And like, so that's cool. and it, I guess, and it sounds cooler than it actually is, but I don't think this is going to matter. This is the type of innovation some fans have been clamoring for. While many will still prefer the traditional broadcast with commentators mixed in with crowd noise, some viewers might prefer to mute the announcers entirely or hear only the natural sounds of the game.

Nobody actually wants that. Conversely, other fans might believe the game audio is too loud and would prefer to turn the announcers up and keep the crowd noise at a lower level. either way, putting it in control of the fans is a no-brainer if the technology allows. Look, I agree with that. I think that's kind of cool that you would allow people to do that. But I'm telling you that 99% of people, this would be a lot of work to be put into something that not that many people give a shit about. Like, I think a lot of times we do this.

We like focus on things that we think people care about and at the end of the day don't fucking matter. This is one of those things. I would circle this as a grand example of that. Like, who gives a shit? People are just watching the football. You want to make the picture look amazing. Give me that 4K quality. Give me that.

That's what people want more of. I don't think people are really all that concerned about the sounds of the game and people aren't all that concern. Like, that would get annoying. Having, like, an overbearing sound of, like, the pads and, like, people tackling each other and, like, the parab mics that are on the field. That would get annoying. Like, people just want to hear the guys call the game.

You might hate the game. You might hate Joe Buck or Troy Aitman or whomever, Beth Mowens, whoever's called the game. You might hate them. But no one's sitting there like, boy, I really wish I could have the opportunity to turn off the announcers and just listen to the crowd for three and a half hours. Make the video better. Please, I'm all for that because I'm amazed by how bad picture quality is. I got a new TV.

It's a solid TV. But man, when you watch games on your local Fox or your local CBS, it looks like shit. Now, when you stream it, it looks amazing. The streaming feeds are great. You will not find a better picture quality than when you see Sunday night football on Peacock. When you watch it on Peacock, now it's way behind, so that's kind of tough. But when you watch it on Peacock, it looks absurdly good. When you watch it on normal NBC, it doesn't.

When you watch it on normal CBS, it doesn't. When you watch it on normal Fox, it doesn't. It's grainy and gross and it pixelates and it sucks. It's amazing that we can't figure out this technology in 2026. Let's see here. Some of these others, now I'm just looking at awful announcing headlines. T-Wolves announcers apologize for misleading comments towards fan on air. Well, I'm curious now.

Let's see, she did absolutely nothing wrong. We apologize for bringing attention to it and any distress that that may have caused. The Minnesota Timberwolves broadcasters on Fandul Sports Network North took a moment during Tuesday's pregame show to apologize for on-air comments made toward a fan during Sunday's. game against the Wizards. Play-by-play voice, Alan Horton, addressed the incident alongside his partner, Jim Peterson. Let me hear it. Like, I'll play this audio, but I have no clue like what the issue was, but let's see. Let's play. With Jim Peterson, I'm Alan Horton. We'd like to take a moment to apologize for something that happened in our last broadcast Sunday in Washington, D.C. We made misleading comments towards a young fan that received a signed

Anthony Edwards jersey toward the end of that game. We did not have full context and later learned that that young woman was, in fact, the intended recipient of that jersey. She did absolutely nothing wrong, and we apologize for bringing attention to it and any distress that that may have caused. I see. So what we have here is it's one of those situations where a guy throws his jersey into the crowd or whatever, and then he tries to, but then a lady jumped to the – okay, I see. So Anthony Edwards Ant tried to give his jersey to a kid But a lady took it

Edwards later signed a jersey And made sure it got to him Okay The incident in question happened During garbage time of Sunday's game When Timberwolf star Anthony Edwards Was seen on the FDSN North broadcast giving his jersey

To a woman behind the bench Behind that woman was a young Timberwolves fan Who both Horton and Peterson Believe the jersey was intended for So that's basically what they did They were like hey that was supposed to go to The fact that you have to apologize

for this shit but I guess you kind of have to because if that was on TV and it made this woman look like shit, she probably got a bunch of hate from people. Now, people aren't going to care. They're going to believe what they're going to believe, but I could see that being a scenario. It's probably some Karen, probably some white chick that everybody was like, they stole the jersey from the kid. Look at this Karen.

Because that's what these people do. And by these people, I mean the internet, because that's what the internet does. Let's see. Hand it to that person. Let's see. hand it to that person over there and don't keep it, Horton said after the woman got the jersey. Is she just going to stick that in her purse? Give it to the kid right behind you, Peterson chimed in. The kid is obviously right behind you.

Luckily, later in the broadcast, Peterson said that Timberwolves beat writer John Kruzzyzzi had posted on social media explaining why Edwards gave the woman the jersey. Quote, Aunt may have been intending to give that young lady behind the bench the actual jersey because she had a Matilda shirt on. and Matilda is Anst's favorite movie or one of Anthony Edwards' favorite movies is Matilda? That's the biggest story of all of this. Who has, who's like, hey, one of my favorite movies is Matilda? It does kick ass. Don't get me wrong, but I would have not guessed that Anthony Edwards, one of his favorite movies, is Matilda. Edward was also seen signing jerseys for other kids later in the game.

It would seem like the explanation should have sufficed, but apparently Horton and Peterson figured it was best to clear the air during the telecast. Okay, whatever. So that's the kind of shit they have to write about on awful announcing, huh? Yeah, whatever. Anywho, crack an announcer takes issue with lengthy in-game ad read. Okay. Whatever.

Like a whole website just dedicate. Now, I've been on awful announcing a couple times, so, you know, take it for what it's worth. Anyway, more to come. Bundle and Save with Expedia. You were made to follow your favorite band. And from the front row, we were made to quietly save you more. Expedia, made to travel. Savings vary and subject to availability.