KANSAS CITY, MO.—Something strange happened during the first game of the World Series that had nothing to do with baseball. Two days after Fox Sports’ lost coverage of Game 1 of the World Series between the Kansas City Royals and New York Mets for a brief time, the production team is still searching for answer as to why both the primary and backup generators in Fox Sports production truck went down.
As Cat Entertainment Services and Fox engineers attempt to identify the source of the power outage, there are a few theories thus far. One possibility is that there was a problem with the electronics and that the computer shut the generators down. Or, there might have been an issue with contaminated fuel.
“At this point we are not really sure,” said Michael Davies, senior vice president of technical and field operations for Fox Sports, in an interview with Broadcasting & Cable. “Those guy [the generator suppliers] are industry leaders and the largest supplier of entertainment generators out there. 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.”
Clearly, this mysterious technical gaff reminds us that nothing is ever foolproof. If there is any silver lining to the situation, Davies says it is that it will “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.”
You can read B&C's full discussion with Michael Davies here.
