Game 7 of the 2016 World Series between Chicago and Cleveland remains one of the great sporting events in recent history, but it was almost split in two by executives at Fox Sports.
Yes, that’s right. According to famed executive Theo Epstein, who built that Cubs team into a champion, during the infamous rain delay after the ninth inning, Fox made an offer to MLB commissioner Rob Manfred to pause the game until the following night.
In an appearance on Lovable Reunion, a 10th-anniversary podcast looking back on Chicago’s iconic World Series run, Epstein recalled a meeting among him, Cleveland’s general manager, Manfred, and a meteorologist during the rain delay, and Manfred’s eventual decision to play out the game.
“The commissioner got a call, and he takes it, and I’m kind of listening, and I’m like, ‘That can’t be who I think it was.’ And he hangs up and is like … ‘that was the head of Fox,'” Epstein said.
“They were asking about the rain, and they said we can suspend this game right now and pick it up tomorrow night in primetime. It’s going to be worth like 25 million more viewers. And he was like, ‘As tempting as that is, we can’t f*cking do that … this is World Series, Game 7.'”
The 17-minute rain delay has become the stuff of legend, with outfielder Jason Heyward reportedly rallying the team with a moving speech that helped propel the Cubs to their first championship in more than 100 years. But the delay began shortly before midnight, which is likely why Fox and MLB had to entertain the possibility of restarting the game later.
Epstein said Manfred did a “great job” by turning down the possibility, and in the end, the delay was fairly short.
As recently as last year, we saw Game 3 of the World Series last more than six hours, ending shortly before midnight. To baseball purists, the competition to outlast the opponent, physically and emotionally, is part of the game’s beauty.
That makes it all the more outrageous that Fox would have ever considered interrupting a historic Game 7 for nearly 24 hours in order to milk the television audience.
About Brendon Kleen
Brendon is a Media Commentary staff writer at Awful Announcing. He has also covered basketball and sports business at Front Office Sports, SB Nation, Uproxx and more.