It’s not unusual for sports fans to get bent a bit out of shape when real-world news preempts live coverage of a major sporting event.
Viewers of Memphis CBS affiliate WREG who had tuned in to watch Florida play Auburn in the Final Four on Saturday found themselves in that very situation.
With tornadoes threatening that area, tornado warnings continued to pop up on the station and even cut into the audio during the game.
That didn’t leave some fans too happy, but WREG chief meteorologist Tyler Eliasen didn’t want to hear the complaints and issued a scathing statement according to Geoff Calkins of The Daily Memphian.
“I don’t want to hear one more comment about why we’re covering up the volume of the game,” Eliasen said on the live broadcast. “You can see the game. You’re going to have to deal with my voice and then just deal with it again because we lost several people. Several people died Wednesday night and potentially this is saving someone’s life in Dumas right now.
“This is still not in that path, not there yet, I should say, but it is a significant tornado, a confirmed tornado and it was very violent going into New Albany, Mississippi. So we’re going to track this. It is what it is. Send me some emails later and we can chat more but this is what it is right now. Deal with it.”
It isn’t the first time that tornado warnings specifically have angered viewers.
In 2019, during the NBA Finals, fans felt the wrath of a Virginia ABC-affiliate WSET weatherman who was unapologetic over his station’s coverage of tornado warnings during Game 7.
Fox 45’s Jamie Simpson also went viral that same year for going off on fans of the show “The Bachelor” after tornado coverage in Dayton, Ohio interrupted their viewing experience.
