At 9:18 p.m. ET tonight, World Series play-by-play announcer Joe Buck was reading a promo for “TV’s best new comedy,” that would be Fox’s The Grinder, when the signal went dark.
Seven seconds later a “technical difficulties” slate went up and would stay up for :25 seconds, at which point a Fox Sports 1 studio crew took over. “We lost our picture. We lost power to the truck we’re being told. As soon as we regain power we will get it back to Kansas City.”
Unbeknownst to the audience at home, a delay of game had been called because of the broadcast outage. After 5 minutes of in-studio discussion, Fox cut back to the game, using the MLB international feed.
“The explanation for this delay is that Fox broadcasting has taken some kind of a technical glitch and the U.S. broadcasters of this event are having a broadcast issue,” said MLB International announcer Matt Vasgersian. “Most unusual to have a game interrupted this way.”
Vasgersian and color analyst John Smoltz picked up coverage. “You didn’t miss anything America,” Vasgersian promised.
After about 10 minutes of the international feed, the “technical difficulties” slate went up again, then back to the studio, before quickly back to the international feed, just as the Mets’ Curtis Granderson hit a home run.
Finally, a full 22 minutes after losing power, Joe Buck and company picked up on Fox. “It was panic for a moment,” said Buck, thanking Vasgersian for pinch hitting.
Fox Sports explains in this statement: “Before the start of the bottom of the fourth inning of tonight’s World Series Game 1, a rare electronics failure caused both the primary and backup generators inside the FOX Sports production compound to lose power. The issue was immediately addressed, although it resulted in the audience missing one at-bat during the time needed to switch to carriage of Major League Baseball’s international feed, powered by a different generator on site. The on-field delay was due to replay capability being lost in both team’s clubhouses. We apologize for the interruption in tonight’s coverage and are working to ensure that the remainder of the World Series is broadcast without incident.”