By Andrew Marchand
November 21, 2022 6:50pm
What time do you want to meet for lunch? Be there at 1 p.m, but I’m
not showing up until 2 p.m. to eat.
This is how Fox Sports dishonestly promotes the World Cup start times.
It is disrespectful, though, not unexpected.
For Monday’s eight years in the waiting United States match against
Wales, Fox’s graphics kept saying that “coverage begins at 1.”
One problem? Kickoff was at 2.
While others do this, too, it is particularly bad when the event is
around the world in Qatar with a time difference that makes start times >unusual for fans.
For Tuesday morning’s Argentina game, Fox Sports has promoted that
coverage begins at 4 a.m., though the game’s kickoff is 5 a.m.
Who needs an hour extra of sleep? Plus, subjecting fans to Alexi Lalas
in the pregame is cruel and unusual punishment at any hour.
In a peak of honesty on Monday morning, working England’s demolition
of Iran, play-by-player Ian Darke, at 68 and with the chops to do what
he wants, added the United States game will actually begin at 2 p.m. But
that is not the norm. We heard no other Fox Sports announcer to do it in
two days of coverage.
Of all the problems with the World Cup, this is not at the top of the
list. Qatar bribed its way to host the event, which resulted in the
games moving from the summer to the winter, the banning of beer being
sold to fans in the stadium and, the latest, players being disallowed
from wearing rainbow colored captain’s “OneLove”
anti-discrimination armbands with a risk of being assessed a yellow
card, if they do.
Like NBC and the Olympics, Fox did not choose the Cup host, but it
dictates how to cover it. It is understood that they are there to
showcase the games. But you need to be there before the fire starts so
the issues surrounding these games need to be part of the coverage
because eventually they may be a very big deal.
First, maybe Fox Sports can tell fans the right time to show up for lunch.
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