FOX is the home of the World Cup in the United States, and it’s only been one game but fans on social media are already at the broadcaster’s neck following a choppy opening to the tournament.
While FOX is all-in on the United States and their first game of the World Cup on Friday against Paraguay in Los Angeles, they showed less focus on the actual curtain rising of the tournament in Mexico City. While the opening ceremony was happening at the legendary Estadio Azteca, FOX were showing their pundit desk at an empty SoFi Stadium in California.
It only got worse though for FOX, who thought the opening ceremony snub would be the biggest controversy of the day.
Due to the higher temperatures in North America for this World Cup, like the last tournament in Qatar, FIFA instituted two mandatory, three-minute hydration breaks in the middle of both halves. While other broadcasters around the world used the small break to get opinion from pundits or go over highlights of the game, FOX went straight to commercial.
Although that alone might have not caused massive backlash, it was the fact that they showed so many ads during the hydration break that it went over the allotted time. Fans watching on FOX actually missed a portion of the game because of the ads, which ignited a firestorm.
Not only is FOX in trouble with fans from across the United States, but it might have already broken FIFA rules by not only failing to get the broadcast to the field 30 seconds before the game kicked off again, but missing actual play time on the field.
FOX’s slogan is “Nobody does it like FOX.”
And for many fans across the world, watching Telemundo and their local broadcasts, they’re thankful for that.