Bloopers That Got These Sports Announcers Fired

The words "sports bloopers," usually conjure a couple of images in mind: first, something that went amiss on the field (or court) of play, and second, something that was funny. Indeed, if the words "sports bloopers" are Googled, the top hits are videos packed with clips of athletes missing easy shots, dropping balls, or comically falling over. There is another category of sports blooper, however, that takes place off the actual field and is not funny — at least not laugh-out-loud funny. These include gaffes made by sports announcers that were so egregious they cost the person their very job.

Yes, some of these moments may draw a laugh, but they probably didn't seem that funny to the person caught on a hot mic, or who just had a slip of the tongue. On the other hand, a few of these folks calmly and collectedly put their proverbial foot into their own mouths and then doubled down on the blooper sandwich — we're looking at you, the late Rush Limbaugh and Jeremy Roenick, on that front. Were some of these firings a bit harsh? Maybe, but the fact is that sports announcers and commentators are the direct points of contact between the public and the game, so when they slip up badly enough, their heads tend to roll, thus protecting the valuable entities that are the teams. Also, some things just can't be blurted out publicly, period, especially when they get recorded.

Susannah Collins had a Freudian slip caught on camera that should have been cause for great embarrassment — the kind of embarrassment that causes sleepless nights for years after, even — but should not have cost the young sports commentator her job with CSN Chicago. Still, per the Chicago Tribune, that's what happened — but there was more to the story. 

While speaking about the ongoing Chicago Blackhawks 2013 NHL season, Collins accidentally said the team had enjoyed "a tremendous amount of sex" while meaning to say "a tremendous amount of success." She managed to stammer out the correct word a moment later, but the damage had already been done — and long before, as it turned out. Collins was ultimately only fired by Comcast SportsNet Chicago because of a series of videos she had created earlier. The salacious comment created a glut of attention around Collins, and the older videos came to light in the churn of things. It was these videos that sank her career, rather than her unfortunate misspoken comment about the Blackhawks' "success."

As reported by the Chicago Tribune mere days after the verbal flub, Phil Bedella, the vice president and general manager of CSN Chicago, issued a statement saying in part: "Due to circumstances unrelated to her on-air remarks Tuesday night, Susannah Collins and Comcast SportsNet Chicago have parted ways." The videos in which Collins co-starred and that were produced by MiddlebrowMedia, were, by turns, anti-Semitic, racist, homophobic, and extremely low-brow.

During his many years on the airwaves, on TV, and later across the internet's endless plains, commentator and political firebrand Rush Limbaugh said a lot of outrageous things that drew a lot of ire from a lot of people. He was an outspoken foil to liberals and the darling of millions of conservatives in the U.S., and beyond. For example, Limbaugh claimed tobacco was barely harmful and secondhand smoke harmless, as reported by The Mercury News. According to Forbes, he openly wished failure on President Obama, and also lied about a multi-year opioid addiction, per The New York Times. And he revealed himself as a racist in comments he made during his stint as an ESPN sports commentator, as ESPN themselves reported.

During a pregame show back in 2003, Limbaugh said of quarterback Donovan McNabb, who is Black: "I think what we've had here is a little social concern in the NFL. The media has been very desirous that a black quarterback do well. There is a little hope invested in McNabb, and he got a lot of credit for the performance of this team that he didn't deserve. The defense carried this team." 

Limbaugh resigned shortly after his remarks stirred up a controversy, including with his fellow ESPN hosts, per The Washington Post. But it was clear the resignation was merely the network allowing him to save face, instead of being outright fired. Nonetheless, his position was untenable, with one of his co-hosts, Tom Jackson, reportedly refusing to work with Limbaugh — and upon the latter's departure, his former ESPN partners also issued apologies on air for the incident.

Nicknamed "Jimmy the Greek " due to his family roots, per The New York Times, Jimmy Snyder was a colorful guy. The problem was that he was also a pretty heavily bigoted guy, and he ran his mouth about it, too. Per The Washington Post, in early January of 1988, one of Snyder's mouthing-off sessions finally caught up to him. 

The statement in question was made during an afternoon interview with Ed Hotaling of WRC-TV-4, and by the evening, it had been aired on multiple other major news networks. Snyder's offensive statement, which was wildly unacceptable at the time and is egregious by today's standards, effectively espoused his hope that people of color were great athletes, but he hoped they would not get into professional coaching jobs — these roles being, in Snyder's mind, the last "white" bastion in sports. He went so far as to say, "The Black is a better athlete to begin with, because he's been bred that way," implying that owners of enslaved people had selectively bred human beings in the antebellum years and that, as a result, were stronger sports players.

Snyder was quickly asked to resign but refused, saying, per The Washington Post, "I never quit anything in my life. I apologized; I admitted I made a mistake in what I said and how I said it and was willing to let my record speak for itself." Refusing to leave voluntarily, Snyder was instead fired by CBS after 12 years with the network.

There's bad taste, there's bad timing, and then there's a combination of those two at once. Unfortunately for him, that's the duo Jeremy Roenick hit when making a joke about threesomes during an interview. And worse still, it wasn't just one comment, but a series of them and, adding even another layer to the mess, the people about whom he was speaking were his own wife, Tracy, and a close personal friend of theirs, sportscaster Kathryn Tappen, according to USA Today. Roenick's suspension and subsequent separation from NBC was an ignominious end to one chapter of a career that included an impressive 20-plus year career in the NHL, during which time he played for multiple teams and was a fan favorite, known to warmly engage with people he met, per USA Today.

But remarks Roenick made on the Barstool Sports' "Spittin' Chiclets" podcast were just too off-color for NBC executives. Among other things, Roenick discussed vacationing with his wife Tracy and their mutual friend and his frequent co-host Tappen, saying: "I play it off like we're all going to bed together every night, the three of us. If it really came to fruition, that would really be good. But it's never going to happen." 

He later apologized for the threesome jokes, but he also later expressed anger and disappointment that he would not be returning to NBC in a video shared via Twitter, also vowing to return to air somewhere soon. Tappen, on the other hand, was clear about her thoughts on the matter, saying she did not condone his unacceptable comments.