Fox Sports committed a major error Saturday night.
Thanks to a long rain delay during the eighth inning of its broadcast of the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox baseball game, Fox pushed back the start of its NASCAR Sprint Cup Subway Fresh Fit 500 from 8 to 8:53 p.m., hoping the baseball game would be over by then.
But it wasn’t. With the Yankees’ Robinson Cano at bat with a 3-and-2 count against Red Sox closer Jonathan Papelbon and two outs in the top of the ninth, Fox told viewers to switch over to FX, it’s cable channel, to catch the rest of the game. By the time viewers made the switch, the Red Sox were celebrating a 4-3 victory.
Fox couldn’t wait one more minute to see how the at-bat turned out? What Fox should have done is start the NASCAR coverage on FX, and tell the auto racing fans to move over there to watch it until the baseball game ended. The start of a race isn’t as important as the thrilling conclusion of a game between two bitter rivals.