Sports Delays and Why They Won’t Go Away

Have you ever wanted to watch a show, only to find out that it was being aired later than it normally would? I complain about this in other blogs of mine. Typically, when shows air on tape delay, the reason is because there was a sports game earlier in the day that they had to show to its completion. Why do they do that? Well, there’s a good reason, even if it means bad things for people who aren’t sports fans. It mostly sparked from a single controversy.

On November 17, 1968, there was a football game that aired on NBC. I don’t know if this was before the concept of tape delay had been introduced to the television world. But people would make sure not to have a repeat of the incident. The football game was between the New York Jets and the Oakland Raiders. The teams were known for their heated rivalry. The game probably wouldn’t have been notable in any way were it not for how it ended and how many didn’t see the end.

Football games didn’t typically take that long of a time to play originally. A three hour time slot was given to the game and this is an hour more longer than what was typically given. It still didn’t turn out to be enough time. It was believed that the movie Heidi should start at 7 as most shows or moves would always start on time. Everyone said that Heidi must start on time. But they knew that the game was going to run long. What were they going to do?

What they wanted to do originally and wanted to do when the game was running long were two completely different things. At the point that Heidi was going to begin, many at the network thought that they should show the rest of the game until it was over. But, they had to inform the people in charge of this. Meanwhile, too many people were calling about the impending cut-off with some wondering if the game would be shown to the end and others wondering if Heidi would start on time. This caused numerous switch boards to jam and caused various communication problems for the people who were trying to work out the problem.

The Jets were winning the game when it came time for Heidi to start. Many executives were wanting to show the end of the game. But the communication problems caused this to not happen. With no way of making it clear that they wanted to show the rest of the game, the decision was made to cut off the end of the game and start Heidi on time. This caused outrage by many people. They wanted to know what happened with the rest of the game. And others thought that the game had ended with the Jets winning. But just what happened with the rest of the game?

There actually wasn’t much of the game left that was cut off. But, it was important enough to change the game. Described as one of the most exciting finishes in football history, the Raiders were able to pull a come from behind victory and win the game with the time they had left. And due to the cut-off, many people had no idea that this had happened. Those who weren’t on the Eastern and Central time zone got to see the rest of the game. But nearly half of the country didn’t see the final outcome.

Here’s more information about this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heidi_Game

Many people have gone to great lengths to insure that such an event would never happen again. It is unlikely that they would ever cut off the end of any sporting events again. Well, there have been reported cases of certain moments like this game happening after it. But those events are pretty rare and don’t happen too much. Although, I can remember a time when something like it happened

In the summer of 2014, for instance, I’m pretty sure that the East Coast feed of a golf event on CBS was moved to a cable channel while they started delayed problems. So we wouldn’t get to see the end of the game without that channel. I can’t remember for sure when it happened, but I clearly remember them saying that it would continue on CBS on the west coast and finishing airing on some cable channel for the rest of the east coast people. So it caused both tape delay and a preemption.

One of the things I’d like to know about tape delay is how it is resolved in the end. I mean, they can’t just keep things on delay and they never are on delay by the next day. So it makes me wonder how they catch up the time. What do they cut? Maybe I’ll find out someday, but I doubt that I’ll ever say up that late to see what happens. I need sleep.

Well, now you know why there is tape delay, although you probably knew it was something along the lines of having to show the end of the game. There are some times when the game is shown out of region, meaning in a place where neither teams play, where the game is cut short in the broadcast, but that typically only happens with an extreme scoring differences and an absolute fact that the losing team cannot possibly turn things around. That’s what I’ve heard about that, at least. But, now you know why you’ll see tape delay with sports events, although it can also happen with live news events as well. It all depends on the situation.