A Tennessean meteorologist has furiously laid into college basketball fans following their complaints over coverage of the men’s March Madness Final Four.
Occasionally, real-world events of high importance, despite fans’ protests, take precedence over live sports and a local Memphis broadcaster found itself in that position during its coverage of the NCAA Tournament’s seminfinals.
Viewers tuning into Memphis CBS affiliate WREG for Saturday’s clash between Florida and Auburn found tornado warnings continuously preempting live game coverage.
With tornadoes threatening Tennessee throughout the week, WREG decided to regularly provide warnings throughout the March Madness matchup. The station continued to show footage of the game with pop-up windows occasionally appearing to show weather maps and warnings.
However, while they could still see the game, some fans were left fuming over the decision, especially when the network cut the in-game audio to allow weatherman Tyler Eliasen to provide crucial updates.
Now, Eliasen has scathingly hit back at those complaints, stressing the life-or-death nature of the situation.
WREG meteorologist furiously hit back at fans who criticized the network’s tornado warnings
The CBS affiliate continuously preempted live coverage of the March Madness Final Four
Florida beat Auburn 79-73 Saturday to punch its ticket to the NCAA Tournament final
‘I don’t want to hear one more comment about why we’re covering up the volume of the game,’ Eliasen reportedly wrote per Geoff Calkins of The Daily Memphian.
‘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 tornado warnings have left basketball viewers furious. During the 2019 NBA Finals, Virginia ABC-affiliate WSET weatherman was unapologetic as he interrupted the station’s coverage of Game 7 with warnings.
Last year, CBS cut away from its March Madness coverage to broadcast Kate Middleton’s statement revealing that she had cancer in a rare interruption from the network’s NCAA programming.
The broadcaster had over five minutes left in Northwestern’s game against Florida Atlantic and the intermission lasted a few minutes before returning to the game.
It marked the first breakaway from the NCAA basketball tournament since CBS paused its broadcasting of the 2003 first-round games to provide news coverage of the United States’ invasion of Iraq on March 20, 2003.
Florida dominated Auburn in Saturday’s game, punching their ticket to the final with a 79-73 win.
The Gators face Houston Monday in a final March Madness showdown after the Cougars pulled off a miraculous comeback against Duke.
This article was originally published by a www.dailymail.co.uk . Read the Original article here. .