Local league fans were left livid after Sky Sport cut to a gambling ad during one of the most meaningful moments of the NRL season. How did it go so wrong?

It was, quite possibly, the angriest Sky Sport customers have ever been – and that’s saying something.

Last Friday night’s late game between bitter rivals the South Sydney Rabbitohs and the Sydney Roosters was one of the most highly anticipated moments of the NRL season. Not for the match itself – effectively a dead rubber for which the Roosters rested most of their best players – but what it represented for the Rabbitohs’ Jai Arrow.

The 31-year-old Souths star announced his retirement from rugby league back in May after he was diagnosed with motor neuron disease. Throughout the season, players from all teams have paid tribute to him with archery-themed try celebrations, and a few weeks ago the Rabbitohs’ final two regular season opponents, the Titans and Roosters, agreed to let Souths have an extra sub so that Arrow could take the field before being immediately subbed off – allowing him to reach the 100-match milestone for his club.

If the sight of Arrow taking the field for game 99 against the Titans was emotional, seeing him walk out to a guard of honour for game 100 was going to be off the charts. Unfortunately, as the camera zoomed in on his face while the teams lined up in the tunnel, Sky Sport cut to its regular pre-recorded ad for youth-focused gambling app Betcha, featuring a clean-cut duo cheerfully discussing their betting picks for the match. When we returned to the live coverage, Arrow was out in the middle and the commentator was telling viewers they had just witnessed “a moment you will never, ever, ever forget”.

The unwelcome creep of gambling promotion in live sports coverage is one thing, but disrespecting a terminally ill rugby league player and all who support him was an affront too far. The social media feedback was fast and furious.

The popular “Sky NZ Complaints” Facebook group erupted, with members claiming this to be the final straw and many vowing to cancel their subscriptions. Sky Sport swiftly apologised and posted the full walkout clip on social media, but with comments turned off, which only made people angrier. Presenter Laura McGoldrick apologised again on behalf of her employer before the Warriors match the next day, but by this stage it seemed like nothing short of Sky’s CEO performing ritual seppuku on the halfway line would have been enough to atone for the mistake.

Ads are just one of the many moving parts of a live sports broadcast that we tend not to think about until they go wrong. During the Fifa World Cup, for example, TVNZ played ads in the middle of a match and cut back to Spain players celebrating a goal. Cricket viewers are frequently frustrated when the ads don’t finish before play resumes after a wicket or over break. In these instances, annoying as they might be, we tend to give the broadcaster the benefit of the doubt and accept that it was an accident.

In their public communications about the matter, Sky deployed unsatisfyingly vague terms like “scheduling error” and “process failure”, possibly in an effort to avoid throwing any one staff member completely under the bus. But it’s hard to speculate how something like this might have happened – or maybe even sympathise with those responsible – when you realise you don’t understand how television broadcasting works at all.

In this spirit, I asked Sky if they’d explain how it actually works behind the scenes. Maybe there was a perfectly adequate explanation after all. What if it’s all just one guy massively under the pump pushing the buttons while watching 10 screens at once? Maybe this hypothetical guy doesn’t even work at Sky any more, and the job has been outsourced to a cheaper labour market? Or maybe that guy has already been replaced by some soulless AI automation? 

The response, which arrived two days later from the head of corporate affairs, was the same statement that had already been sent to the Media Insider and other media outsiders, which didn’t really help answer any of my questions or indeed inspire a great deal of sympathy.

What we do know is that the preceding game in the Friday night double-header ran long. Usually there’d have been plenty of time for an ad break between the two, during which the Betcha ad would have run without any uproar. But on this occasion, the live feed from Australia cut straight to the Rabbitohs and Roosters players already in the tunnel.

In any other game Sky would have probably gotten away with sneaking in the Betcha ad at this point to appease their gambling overlords – they made it back in time for kickoff, after all. But this clearly wasn’t just any game, and I’m still no closer to understanding how any sentient human being paying even a modicum of attention could have accidentally failed to recognise that.

Sky’s statement in full:

This was an awful mistake and we deeply regret that it occurred.  

The advertisement was not intentionally placed during Jai Arrow’s walkout. The preceding match ran over time, which displaced the expected advertising break. In error, we continued to play out a scheduled pre-match advertisement. We take full responsibility for that error.

We have completed an initial review, and we are reinforcing a clear requirement with the relevant team: if an advertising break is lost because preceding coverage overruns, scheduled advertisements must not be played. We will continue to review whether any further safeguards are required. 

We view this as a process failure, have addressed the matter with the relevant team and are focused on ensuring it does not happen again.

We are extremely sorry for getting it wrong, and the disappointment it caused our customers.