Sunday, November 02, 2008

Fox Ruins Football, Too

We all know about Fox and their dubious coverage of baseball, but today, they hit a new low on their football coverage as well.

Here in NYC, they were showing the Tennessee Titans-Green Bay Packers game from Nashville on their doubleheader coverage. (I was switching back and forth between that game and the Jets-Bills game on CBS this afternoon.) It turned out to be a really good game, and of course, being a Vikings fan, I had more than just a passing interest in how Green Bay did.

The game was tied 16-16 and went into overtime. Now granted, the Giants-Cowboys game was starting at 4:15 on Fox and they would have to leave the game when the Giants game started for those fans watching in New York. That's in the NFL rules, and that's fair enough.

The game in Tennessee was winding down in OT and the Titans were moving into field goal range as the clock was moving towards 4:15. As the Titans were getting ready to set up for a game-winning field goal attempt, the clock said 4:12 and some voice came on saying that Fox had to leave the game for the following game's home-team coverage.

And all of a sudden, as they show Titans kicker Rob Bironas on the field getting ready for the attempt, the screen goes dark. What the hell? And what do those assholes at Fox show next? Some goddamn commercials!!! Again, they aren't going to the kickoff of the Giants game directly, they have to show some stupid commercials for nearly three minutes (they can't wait to show them until after the next game started?) and take away the fans who have watched the Titans-Packers game for three hours and twelve minutes and deny them what could have been a great finish.

And yes, there was a great finish as Bironas kicked the winning field goal to give the Titans a 19-16 win. And I discovered that a few seconds later when I tuned over to CBS to check on their scoreboard update.

Absolutely, totally lame. And inexcusable, too.

Fox sure has written the book on how to destroy sports on television.

4 comments:

Steel36 said...

Well at least Fox no longer has that self-parody that is John Madden.

Joe Maddon is definitely the coolest Maddon/Madden in sports.

I mean The only really great sports coverage at this point is "Hockey Night on Canada"

BklynSoxFan said...

I do like the Red Sox coverage on NESN, and the Mets on SNY. Both are of some quality, but I guess I'm a bit biased...

Michael Leggett said...

Heidi LIVES at FOX Sports:

NESN and SNY are fine to watch;

YES is like Soviet TV in The '60s.

Michael Leggett said...

About 40 Years ago, I was at My Father's Brother's Home, watching Jets-Raiders, On Ocean Avenue in Flatbush:

They went to commercials, then to "Heidi":

NBC never knew what hit them with that gaffe.