Pissed at FOX Sports (1 Viewer)

[Jim]

I've been very supportive of Fox (Heck, I was generally forgiving of the many SNAFUs perpetrated by ESPN) but they really screwed the pooch today......in FRance.
They cover most of the 24 Hours of LeMans (most on FOX1 but some of the conflicting hours on Fox 2 <wherever THAT might reside>) then bail-out in the last two hours to cover third round action (at, what 8:00am) of the US Open GOLF match.
I mean, how many people MIGHT have programmed their DVR - unaware that they made the change - apparently - in the middle of the night for 2 hours of a semi-final round of golf.
I know I did a lot of honey-dos this morning and between rounds of All-Access and (especially when I heard the final minutes were pretty interesting) planned on savoring the end of the race and Ford's celebration (I assume) after dinner.
I hope their prorammers show better judgement when/if a similar conflict arises with NHRA.

PS: Folks are really venting on their board (unfortunately, I've been unable to scroll through all the comments - either their board or my computer seems clogged)

 

[parrotwhisperer]

The old "Speed" channel always did a good job of covering the 24 Hours of Lemans. It is THE biggest sports car race in the world and this year an American team with Ford was a big winner. I couldn't see it. It was not on as advertised. I hope a zillion fans bitch to Fox but what I really hope is Ford finds something better to do with their zillion dollars of advertising money than support a network that cut them off at their knees!

 

[Sandman]

Agree 100%. My son and I were watching live to see how the Fords were doing, even drug him out of bed to see it. Then the next thing I know, golf. Really Fox?

 

[Jimbo]

I wonder what the NHRA thinks of what Fox did?

I would guess they are not very happy with Fox either.

Jim Hill
http://www.nostalgicracingdecals.com

 

[vegasnitro]

I enjoyed the 24 Hours as well and it was frustrating chasing it around the dial. What a crushing way for Toyota to lose.

Also, regular NHRA pit reporter Jamie Howe did a spectacular job on her commentary during the 24 hours.

 

[Jeff]

You can really blame your DVR provider .... I've noticed that DirecTV is now doing a much better job of changing listings for stuff similar to this.

US Open viewership numbers might surprise you relative to any motorsport.

 

[cantdrive55]

Not that it matters, but the U.S. Open will always take precedence over any car race, for one it has history on it's side, 121 years. The 24 heures du Mans is only 84 and just for perspective this year was the 100th Indy 500, 58th Daytona 500, and the US Nationals will be 62. Not to mention the ratings and money are pretty good too .

As for channel hopping; yeah it's a PITA, but there's not much you can do about it. There's no way Fox Sports, or any other channel can devote solid 24 hours of coverage to a car race. I think the old Speed Channel at best covered like 14 hrs. a couple of times. If your cable/satellite provider subscribes to the FoxSports Go service it's a great way to log in and keep track of everything. You don't have to channel surf due to switching coverage. Daytona, Sebring, and the Petit Le Mans are difficult to keep up with when trying to co-ordinate between FS1, FS2, and FoxSports Go. For me I just stick with FS Go, and log in when I want to catch up on the enduros. Also you don't need the app to watch. You can go to FoxSportsGo.com and log in from their site.

 

[Reese]

US Open viewership numbers might surprise you relative to any motorsport.

I was thinking the same thing. The weather played havoc with the U.S. Open schedule and Fox paid a lot of money to get the rights. I don't think any other sport(football if it was in season) that would move golf this past weekend.

 

[Jim]

>>As for channel hopping; yeah it's a PITA, but there's not much you can do about it.>
No complaint about channel hopping per se - I knew I couldn't DVR the entire 24 hours (Nor did I want to).
Just that FOX changed networks on-the-fly and instead of picking up the final two hours of the race - at 8 AM EDT - they switched to the penultimate round of golf. Frankly, I doubt many golf fans were anticipating golf coverage at 8 AM.. For suire LOTS of 24 Hour LeMans fans WERE planning on the race on FOX 1.
It never occurred to me to check the live feed (Yes, I could have) because I knew rain or shine the race hours were fixed to end at 4pm European time by tradition.
BTW: I KNEW the outcome of the race before I tried to view it. I knew there was some SNAFU with Toyota on the last lap but, I wanted to witness it first hand (I did see a video of the final lap or 2 this morning - I STILL don't understand why Toyota didn't get on the podium)

 

[vegasnitro]

I STILL don't understand why Toyota didn't get on the podium)

There is a rule the ACO has that the final lap for the overall leader is the final lap of the race. Period. After the overall leader crosses the finish line to end the race, all cars on track are allotted 6 minutes to complete their lap (cross the start/finish line 1 more time). If you do NOT complete that lap within the allotted time, you are deemed to not have finished the race, and you will be classified as the last car in your class (ahead of retirements obviously). So what you have is a crazy situation where the Toyota completed more laps than every car except the winning car, but is deemed to not have finished the race, therefor they were classified behind the "running" cars (even ones many laps down) but ahead of retirements . The real kick in the pants is that Le Mans is double points towards the WEC Championship, so Toyota earns no points in the championship.

EDIT: I just googled the results, the Toyota completed 3 more laps than the 2nd place car and 12 more laps than the 3rd place car. Each lap at Le Mans is ~9 miles, so the Toyota traveled ~27 more miles than second and ~108 more miles than third and get nothing to show for it. They were classified as 45th overall, the first of the non finishers and 7th out of 9 in the LMP1 class and they only payout points to 6th place. OUCH..

 

[sdwarf36]

The rule was to prevent cars on deaths door parking 10 ft from finish to coast across the line. Poor Toyota-the car died right AFTER the line-so they had to limp a full lap-and required cool down lap.
Porsche was a total class act. A couple of Toyota engineers stopped by Porsches win party-they got a big round of applause when they entered to the room.

 

[Jim]

Chris & Sherman,
Thanks for the explanation. I was pretty certain Toyota was way ahead of the 2nd and 3rd car - silly me - I thought most miles was the determining factor. Them's the rules - Tough deal for Toyota.
Still happy to see Ford back in the hunt - Force's sponsorship loss not withstanding.