BOISE -- For those of you lucky enough to have ESPNU, the Bronco-Vandal game Saturday got off to a rocky start.
In the first quarter, ESPNU announcers said coverage was on hold, blaming the lack of coverage on a blown breaker at Bronco Stadium.
But as for how and why that breaker blew, those investigating are still in the dark.
“I don't see how we could have prevented it,” said Paul Niemsyk, Boise State’s electrical supervisor. “I mean, it's an unknown source, unknown cause, so just something happened."
Toward the front end of the first quarter, ESPNU lost power to their production trucks running the game.
Since some Boise State students couldn't get tickets to the game, and didn't have ESPNU at home, they decided to watch the game at Taco Bell Arena.
"They just said there were technical difficulties and that they couldn't get a transmission for the game to play this one, so they were playing the other games," said Lindsay Andrysiak, a Bronco fan.
Those not wanting to watch the Ohio State - Iowa game turned on the radio to hear this:
"We want to welcome all the people that were watching ESPNU that have probably turned us on. It appears there was a power outage at the stadium. Fortunately it doesn't affect our radio broadcast. ESPNU is not with us," said an announcer on KIDO radio.
"Normally they run their own generator to avoid this type of situation, but evidently this time they're running off of city power, but I still don't, I can't, unless something really strange happened in one of those trucks, I can't explain this, what happened here," Niemsyk said.
Fans watching from home missed a big chunk of the first quarter.
"One of the reasons we came to Taco Bell Arena is to get the game,” said Jacob Bierle, a Bronco fan. “We thought maybe they would have a different feed here, so coming in here and knowing that the game was still not even playing, I mean, we're just trying to figure out what's going on in the stadium."
Even though Channel 7 wasn't airing the game, and didn't play a role in the outage, many called our newsroom wanting to know if KTVB could pick up where ESPNU left off.
"Well, I wish we could,” said KTVB News Group General Manager Doug Armstrong. “Our truck is usually here when we are televising the game. Unfortunately it was back at the station, parked, because ESPN had their truck here and their crew, so we couldn't have ours on-site.”
Eventually, ESPNU with the help of Boise State employees restored power to their production trucks.
"This game belongs to the people of Idaho,” Armstrong said. “And they just wanted to see the game, and they don't frankly care about electronics and that kind of thing. They just want it fixed and they want to see the game.”
Armstrong said that he made an offer to ESPNU to carry the game on Channel 7 for free, since the vast majority of the Treasure Valley has access to Channel 7. ESPN declined that offer.
ESPNU is a network seen in 55 million homes across the U.S.
But here in the Treasure Valley, it's estimated that 40 to 45 percent of homes do not get ESPNU.
ESPN officials in Boise for Saturday's game declined to comment on the power outage.
