Fox's Delayed World Series Pregame Angers Brewers Fans as College Football Runs Long

The World Series is baseball's biggest stage, but on Saturday night it had to wait its turn. Fox delayed the start of its Game 2 pregame show by more than 40 minutes, choosing instead to stay with the overtime conclusion of a college football game between Brigham Young University and the University of Central Florida. By the time the network switched to Milwaukee, the pregame show had been squeezed to roughly 12 minutes before game coverage began. When the broadcast finally switched, the pregame segment ran only about 12 minutes before game coverage began at 7 p.m. local time.

The football game, at least, delivered drama worthy of the delay. Central Florida pulled off an upset of No. 3 BYU, handing the previously undefeated Cougars a loss in a result that will reverberate through the College Football Playoff race. But for Brewers fans who had waited decades to watch their team host a World Series, the trade-off was infuriating. Social media filled with complaints from Milwaukee supporters, many of whom were already disgruntled with Fox's playoff coverage this October.

The series itself pits two of baseball's most resourceful small-market clubs against each other. The Brewers took Game 1 at American Family Field on Friday night, beating the Tampa Bay Rays 3-2 in a tight opener. Game 2 followed on Saturday night in Milwaukee, with the Rays looking to even the series before it shifts to Florida, and the Brewers aiming to protect home field and take a commanding lead. First pitch for Game 2 was set for 8 p.m. Eastern.

During the delay, Fox's official YouTube livestream showed stadium camera footage accompanied by Halloween music, an odd holding pattern for one of the biggest broadcasts of the sports year. The episode highlighted the modern scheduling crunch facing networks that hold rights to both college football and the World Series: live overtime cannot be paused, pregame shows can be shortened, and somebody's fans are always left unhappy.

There is a certain symmetry to the matchup that made the truncated pregame a shame. Neither the Brewers nor the Rays operate with the payroll of baseball's coastal giants; both organizations are routinely cited as models of player development and efficiency, wringing contention out of modest budgets. Their meeting in the Fall Classic guarantees a champion from outside the sport's biggest markets, a storyline Fox's own analysts would have had plenty to say about had they been given the airtime. Milwaukee is chasing the first championship in franchise history, which helps explain the intensity of feeling in Wisconsin: fans did not just miss some analysis on Saturday, they missed part of a celebration half a century in the making.

Fox holds broadcast rights to both the World Series and major college football conferences, and such collisions are an occupational hazard of October sports. Still, the incident is likely to fuel debate about whether networks should move marquee baseball coverage to a secondary channel when football runs long, or start games later. For Brewers fans, the controversy will be forgotten quickly if their team keeps winning; the Rays, meanwhile, will happily take any distraction that cools Milwaukee's momentum.