ESPN’s Scott Van Pelt Couldn’t Hide His Reaction To New Year’s Eve Kiss During Last Night’s ‘SportsCenter’

Hope everyone had a safe and Happy New Year’s Eve!

Scott Van Pelt, the longtime SportsCenter host, almost had a disastrous one, but he managed to save himself at the last second. Van Pelt has hosted the late version of SportsCenter since 2015, and as the clock struck midnight last night, and the calendar flipped from 2025 to 2026, the ESPN employee skated along the cliff of cancellation.

Here’s what happened.

Scott Van Pelt was allowing for ESPN’s parent company, ABC, to bump in with their coverage of the ball drop in Times Square. The new year in the eastern time zone is always rung in at the iconic, New York, New York location, and thousands of people always packs themselves into the area like sardines to witness the moment. It’s ABC’s job to capture all of the magic on camera as it plays out.

The ESPN host thought he was ready for the ball drop, and things started off okay as the clock struck midnight and the cameras started panning to the crowd, who were sealing the new year’s arrival with a kiss. Van Pelt pointed out that’s not normally what SportsCenter brings to homes across the country:

“Yeah, live makeouts on ‘SportsCenter.’ Get into it.”

But that wasn’t the problem.

The issue arose when ABC’s coverage showed two dudes kissing, which prompted Scott Van Pelt to presumably react naturally to the situation. A veteran in the space, he pivoted at the last second and kept his cool, which was hilariously to watch in real time,

“Oh… what are we, what do we got? We’ve got love in the air. We’ve got makeouts. Who’s having a good time? Happy New Year everybody!”

What a save.

Yeah, that was clearly supposed to be a “What are we doing?”

And though SVP played it off… okay, the internet and anyone that was watching live knew exactly how close that was to being the final SportsCenter broadcast for Scott Van Pelt.

Social media immediately started cracking jokes about the buzzer-beater save, saying things like:

He was about to say “What are we DOING?!” but caught himself.

— LandDeveloperGuy (@subdivisionguy) January 1, 2026

Scott Van Pelt almost got cancelled at that New Years countdown moment lmaooooo

— Robael Enyew (@RobaelEnyew) January 1, 2026

The recovery was anything but smooth

— VegasCheesehead (@Shady_Justin) January 1, 2026

Scott Van Pelt when he saw two dudes kissing pic.twitter.com/K6UDUpiDlh

— Austin Rogers (@MrAustinRogers) January 1, 2026

Should’ve finished the “What are we doing?” and if that gets you fired, so be it.

— Juan (@JuanRodrig07) January 1, 2026

Scott Van Pelt with the save. Bro just about got cancelled pic.twitter.com/ouovabTzpB

— Big Game Wang (@thaJerryJones) January 1, 2026

Legendary lock in at the last moment

— BOBBY MARS (@bobby_on_mars) January 1, 2026