Well, the big game last night was a bit odd even before the blackout. For about 30 minutes during the first half, at least for some Comcast customers, the color convergence was off (similar to old tube analog sets that needed adjustment). Many Tweets were questioning if they were airing the game in 3-D. Then the screen went blank for an instant and was fixed.
Then the 35-minute power outage in the third quarter then changed the momentum of the game. As of today, there’s still no clear explanation of what happened.
Here’s the joint statement issued Sunday night by Entergy, the power company, and SMG, which manages the Superdome: “Shortly after the beginning of the second half of the Super Bowl in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome, a piece of equipment that is designed to monitor electrical load sensed an abnormality in the system. Once the issue was detected, the sensing equipment operated as designed and opened a breaker, causing power to be partially cut to the Superdome in order to isolate the issue.”
And the statement from CBS Sports on the power outage: “Immediately after the power failure in the Superdome, we lost numerous cameras and some audio powered by sources in the Superdome. We utilized CBS’s back-up power and at no time did we leave the air. During the interruption, CBS Sports’ Steve Tasker, Solomon Wilcots and our studio team reported on the situation as a breaking news story, providing updates and reports while full power was being restored to the dome including our sets and broadcast booth. All commercial commitments during the broadcast are being honored.”
