A challenge with putting sports on broadcast networks is when those networks, or their individual affiliates, decide that something else is more important than the game. The latest case of that came Saturday night, where most Fox stations that were carrying the New York Mets-Philadelphia Phillies game cut into it for about five minutes to air President Donald Trump’s 10 p.m. ET speech about bombing Iran, then returned to the game. The cut to Trump’s speech was previously indicated by an announcement on the broadcast:
Adam Amin: “Every Fox station will be taking viewers to an address from President Donald Trump. He will address the nation from the White House regarding the United States military operations in Iran. [Mets-Phillies] will continue on FS1, WWOR…” pic.twitter.com/7VdPVCbqNe
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) June 22, 2025
As noted, most Fox stations then returned to the MLB game. But KDFW (the owned-and-operated Fox affiliate serving the Dallas-Fort Worth market) instead went to their local newsroom, with anchor Casey Stegall hosting what wound up being a local news hour almost entirely focused on the Iran situation (with some cuts to particular Fox News segments and clips of Trump’s speech), and no return to the game. Viewers looking for it had to watch on FS1 or other alternatives. Here’s the start of their local coverage:
The majority of Fox affiliates went back to Mets-Phillies after President Trump’s speech, but KDFW in Dallas instead went to their local newsroom for an hour mostly focused on further coverage of the Iran situation. Here’s the start of that. pic.twitter.com/Qmxtgqy52H
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) June 22, 2025
Meanwhile, other affiliates even outside of the markets of the teams involved went back to the MLB game almost immediately after Trump’s statement (around 10:06) and stuck with it through at least its 10:35 p.m. ET conclusion, if not longer. For example, WFLD (the owned-and-operated Fox affiliate in Chicago) stuck with the national feed through the postgame, which included Ken Rosenthal’s postgame interview with the Mets’ Juan Soto, plus coverage of some highlights from around MLB. They only went to their local newscast (which also led with the Iran situation) at 10:47 E.T., 9:47 p.m. local (Central). And that was far more the norm than the Dallas decision.
These cut-ins are always a balancing act, involving weighing the importance of the news against the sports programming in question, and they often take criticism from viewers. And individual affiliates sometimes handle them differently than the overall network, with their decisions sometimes about local importance of the news, local importance of the sports event, or other factors. There are only certain levels of cut-ins that the network mandates, and this didn’t reach that level. So this was about individual decisions from these networks.
The KDFW and WFLD situations are interesting to compare, though. They’re both owned-and-operated by Fox (so there isn’t a separate ownership group involved), and they’re both outside the markets of the teams involved. But WFLD decided to stick with the network feed of the baseball game, while KDFW abandoned it for news.
A notable part of that is that both of these stations were initially set to go to local news at 9 p.m. local, as per their respective official listings. The baseball game was scheduled for the 6-9 p.m. CT window. But, even in a pitch clock era, games sometimes overrun. KDFW figured the news was more important than the game’s conclusion, while WFLD went the other way. (Another potential factor there may have been what followed the news; KDFW had a rerun of Next Level Chef at 10, which they started on time, while WFLD had locally-produced show Chicago Sports Tonight, which they were able to bump later thanks to starting the news so late, so they still got their news hour in.)
Saturday night proved an interesting case for cut-ins in general. ABC was the only major broadcast network to cut into programming immediately when news of the Iran situation first broke, but they were only airing reruns of The $100,000 Pyramid: it likely would have been a different situation if they had a major sports broadcast (such as Sunday night’s NBA Finals). All of the major networks went to Trump’s speech at 10 E.T., and some went from there to special reports from their national news desks. Fox affiliates generally opted to let viewers watch the rest of the baseball game following Trump’s speech, though, but that wasn’t the case in Dallas.
The overall situation illustrates challenges that can arise with airing sports on broadcast TV. Broadcast stations are highly desired by leagues for their reach, especially in this heavy cord-cutting era, but they do have other commitments that they will break in for in a way cable sports networks will not. Just where and when those cut-ins come is always a matter of debate, though, and it’s interesting to see the decision KDFW made here and how it differed from the one made by many other affiliates.
