Many viewers watching Sinclair-owned Fox Buffalo affiliate WUTV (Fox 29 Buffalo) Sunday wound up missing Caitlin Clark breaking “Pistol” Pete Maravich’s all-time top-level NCAA basketball (men’s or women’s) scoring record. Clark did that shortly before halftime in the Fox-broadcast game between the No. 2 Ohio State Buckeyes and her No. 6 Iowa Hawkeyes. But with Clark just two points away from that record in the final minute of the first half, the WUTV feed crashed to a video freeze frame with no audio for many.
It’s not quite clear yet if this was station-wide for WUTV or if it was an issue with their feed on certain cable, satellite, or virtual multichannel video programming distributors. But the feed did crash for many, and did not return until 4:47 later, in the middle of an interview with Clark ahead of halftime, and after she broke the record. Here’s the exit and the return (there were four minutes of a frozen video frame and no sound in between):
Fox Buffalo affiliate WUTV froze on at least some feeds for five minutes (frozen image, no audio), and missed Caitlin Clark's record. Here's that start, via TVEyes: "Two points away from breaking Pistol Pete's all-time mark!" And then…garble, and freeze frame. For 4:47. pic.twitter.com/6JjuDlC6Nu
— Andrew Bucholtz (@AndrewBucholtz) March 3, 2024
Here’s how WUTV came back after 4:47 of freeze frame, in the middle of a halftime interview with Clark after she broke the record. pic.twitter.com/dMlzJA8ltO
— Andrew Bucholtz (@AndrewBucholtz) March 3, 2024
The feed was out from 1:53:08 p.m. to 1:57:55 p.m. Eastern on TVEyes. And that sparked notice from many watching on that feed, in Western New York and across the border in the Toronto area. Here are some of those tweets:
Anyone else's FOX feed just glitch out on there just as Caitlin Clark was going for history?
— Marty Czekala (@MartyCzekala) March 3, 2024
WHAT is going ON!! My feed for Caitlin Clark is frozen with 23.2 seconds left 😭😭😭
— Danielle Michaud (@SNMichaud) March 3, 2024
Fox’s coverage breaking as Caitlin Clark about to break the record is far from ideal
— matthew isakow (@matthewisakow1) March 3, 2024
The Fox broadcast just froze as Caitlin Clark is going for the all time record…wow
— Corey (@C_Heinrich91) March 3, 2024
Apparently, Buffalo was not the only place where this happened, either. In Baltimore, Fox affiliate WBFF (also owned by Sinclair) wound up with a freeze-frame for around a minute right at the time of Clark’s crucial free throws:
Fox affiliate WBFF in Baltimore also missed Caitlin Clark’s record-breaking free throws, going to a freeze-frame for around a minute and coming back just ahead of the half. (H/T to @nreigle.) pic.twitter.com/LuR8LFKeBs
— Andrew Bucholtz (@AndrewBucholtz) March 3, 2024
Leland McCray, who works on ESPN 1240 high school sports coverage in Charlottesville, Virginia, tweeted at AA that he’d also seen a freeze-frame on DirecTV in that area:
Also in Virginia on DirecTV
— Leland McCray (@lelandgm) March 3, 2024
Update: North Carolina Fox affiliate WGHP (owned by Nexstar) also hit issues:
Fox affiliate WGHP in the High Point-Greensboro-Winston-Salem market missed Caitlin Clark's record too, with a freeze frame ahead of the free throws, a sort of comeback right during it with garbled visuals and audio, and then finally a return to normal. (H/T to @EddieWootenRun.) pic.twitter.com/n0OAXllmtR
— Andrew Bucholtz (@AndrewBucholtz) March 4, 2024
And there may have been others as well. But Richard Deitsch of The Athletic got a comment from Fox that this was not a national issue:
For those who asked:
I checked with Fox Sports. If your screen froze around the time Caitlin Clark set the record, it was a local/provider issue. Fox says it was clean throughout nationally.
— Richard Deitsch (@richarddeitsch) March 3, 2024
That led to this being discussed as a potential issue with sun interference with a Fox satellite feed:
Sun outage on the primary NET feed for FOX was the culprit if a station hadn’t switched to the backup before it hit. Great timing too.
— Suddenly Sim🥹n (@reverendmalibu) March 3, 2024
Technical difficulties like this do happen, and often at inopportune times. CBS/Paramount Global streaming service Paramount+ hit major issues for many in this year’s Super Bowl, while Grand Rapids, Michigan NBC affiliate WOOD-TV lost their network signal during the Detroit Lions’ divisional playoff game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Also, Fox as a network infamously hit technical difficulties during the 2015 World Series. (Although, with that being a network issue rather than an affiliate or streaming service one, and one impacting in-game replays, it led to a delay of game rather than missed action). But this was certainly an unfortunate one for viewers in affected areas who were hoping to watch Clark set the record live.
[Awful Announcing on Twitter]
