The outage during Game 1 of this year’s World Series is every network executive’s nightmare. Even though Fox had main and backup generators for its production trucks, both of them failed knocking its broadcast off the air and forcing the network to tap into MLB International’s feed which was unaffected.
Fox and its generator supplier are trying to determine what led to the outage, but in the meantime, it has already taken steps to ensure another failure won’t happen. According to Broadcasting & Cable, Fox brought extra generators for Game 2 last night and also plugged into Kauffman Stadium’s power supply. Normally, networks don’t plug into the stadium’s electrical system because they feel their generators are more reliable.
On Tuesday when the main generator went out, the backup was supposed to kick in for a seamless transition, however, both failed and that is what has Fox technicians scratching their heads. Michael Davies, the senior vice president for technical and field operations at Fox Sports tells B&C that all possibilities are being investigated to determine the cause of the failures:
“At this point we are not really sure,” he said. “Those guys [the generator suppliers] are industry leaders and the largest supplier of entertainment generators out there,” Davies said. “We’ve done many events with them—the U.S. Open, Super Bowl are powered by their generators. We like them because they have an incredibly good maintenance record.”
You have to go back to Super Bowl XLVII on CBS for an outage at a major sporting event. At that time, CBS had backups, but a portion of their system was plugged into the Louisiana Superdome’s power supply which blacked out and the network lost power in its broadcast booth while the generators kept working.
Davies said Fox and other networks look at all contingencies, but sometimes the unthinkable happens:
“We do an enormous amount of contingency planning,” said Davies. “Whenever this happens to another network, I always say it is a good thing that it didn’t happen to us but that we should pretend that like it did.”
In the aftermath of the glitch, Davies noted that what it does do is “give everyone an opportunity to think about what their power plans were and to go over their own protocols and get a lot smarter. I think it will catalyze a lot of discussion in the industry.”
When the outage occurred, Fox quickly switched to its Fox Sports Live studios and a stunned Dan O’Toole, Eric Karros and Dontrelle Willis who vamped until the network tapped into MLB International’s feed.
Davies said that Fox may use an uninterruptable power supply in New York starting Friday. The outage was embarrassing for the network and it wants to ensure that another one won’t happen for the rest of the World Series.
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