Obama Campaign Ad To Delay Start Of World Series Game Six

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Didn't think I'd be going with back-to-back annoying commercials department, but you can add Barack Obama's name to the growing list. Obama has officially decided to use a 30-minute....not seconds, minutes!....spot before the start of the potential Game Six of the World Series. Of course you could just skip it, but according to CNN....it's actually pushing back the start of the game....

The Republican National Committee took aim at Barack Obama Wednesday over the Illinois senator's half-hour ad buy that will delay the start of a World Series game by 18 minutes.

"It’s unfortunate that the World Series’ first pitch is being delayed for Obama’s political pitch," RNC spokesman Alex Conant said. "Not only is Obama putting politics before principle, he’s putting it before our national pastime.”

Major League Baseball has agreed to a request from Fox to delay the start time of Game 6 of the World Series (if a Game 6 is necessary) so the network can air the 30-minute Obama spot, a Fox spokesman confirms to CNN. The Illinois senator has also bought similar time on CBS and NBC, set to begin at 8 p.m.
The potential Game Six would be on October 29th, and it's seemingly a smart move as far as timing of the election goes, it's just another instance of Politics creeping into Sport. I know we've had this discussion many times in the past few months, but I just really can't stand when they mix.

The last thing I want before a potential World Series clinching game is a 30-minute delay.

Obama takes heat for delaying World Series game (CNN)

(Thanks to SL for the tip)

Posted by Awful Announcing- at 9:20 AM

23 Comments:

Give me a fuckin break the RNC could care less about baseball there just mad obama came up with the idea before they did ...There so desprate to win votes now that they'll take anything as an excuse to smear what a bunch of assholes

W_Rabb said...
Oct 16, 2008, 9:35:00 AM  

Great, I love socialistic ideals, keep 'em coming Mr. Marx!

Anonymous said...
Oct 16, 2008, 9:39:00 AM  

Not to defend Obama or anything, but I think it should be pointed out that he had nothing to do with the decision to move first pitch back a whole 18 minutes. FOX could very well have started the game at the same time instead of asking MLB to delay the game.

Anyways, you should see this as a positive - it will probably mean less pregame time for Joe Buck and Tim McCarver.

Patrick said...
Oct 16, 2008, 9:47:00 AM  

FUCK. The reason I watch sports right now is to avoid politics. All the more reason not to vote for Obama, he's fucking with my baseball.

alex said...
Oct 16, 2008, 9:58:00 AM  

Oh please, anyone getting bent out of shape about this needs to get their priorities straight. The RNC is an absolute joke. They're pissed they don't have the funds or the forethought to have done this themselves (this isn't without precedent. Hillary did it in the primaries) But really, who cares. It's not like Obama asked to have the game delayed. He bought the time, the networks opted to push the game back.

Anonymous said...
Oct 16, 2008, 10:01:00 AM  

This is for a Game 6, the way baseball playoffs are going.. .it might only be a 3 Game series. Fox needs the ad dollars that they lost from no game 6 or 7 in the NLCS.

Anonymous said...
Oct 16, 2008, 10:38:00 AM  

first pitch will be 538p in the west, it's all good.

-dan

Anonymous said...
Oct 16, 2008, 10:39:00 AM  

So an RNC spokesman is stating that baseball is more important than this election??? Has he forgotten what his job is?

GMoney said...
Oct 16, 2008, 10:44:00 AM  

1. The RNC is only pissed because they didn't think of it first (and they are too poor to do it anyway.)

2. Why is baseball allowing this to occur? Because they know the ratings will suck anyway. This is why ratings are important, so shit like this doesn't happen.

Anonymous said...
Oct 16, 2008, 10:50:00 AM  

Why is this "politics creeping into sport"? Obama isn't giving a speech before throwing out the first pitch; he made an unrelated TV buy. If MLB had any confidence in their product, they'd just schedule the game whenever they wanted.

Jim said...
Oct 16, 2008, 11:18:00 AM  

WTF people, with all the pomp and shit that goes on before the games, you know that if the festivities still started at 8pm, that baseball game wouldnt start until about 40 after 8

John said...
Oct 16, 2008, 11:21:00 AM  

Plain and simple Fox was offered more then a million dollars for the 30 minutes there was a conflict so Obama had moved on.

With the idea that it will be a Rays Phillie world series and ratings will be terrible Fox decided to go for the money grab. Yes the right-wing a-holes at Fox wanted more money

Anonymous said...
Oct 16, 2008, 11:27:00 AM  

From gmoney:So an RNC spokesman is stating that baseball is more important than this election??? Has he forgotten what his job is?

Nobody has even heard about the 2008 election. It is almost like it is the stealth election. Obama who? McCain who? Sarah Palin - never heard of her?

Gimme a break.

Anonymous said...
Oct 16, 2008, 11:56:00 AM  

Remember Black Monday in 1987? It happened to coincide with a travel day in the World Series. ABC got MLB to delay Game 5 (I believe) so President Reagan could give a speech about the financial mess.

Anonymous said...
Oct 16, 2008, 12:23:00 PM  

Not to mention the two fanbases most hacked-off about starting late hail from Pennsylvania and Florida.

Dumb move, O.

BF said...
Oct 16, 2008, 12:33:00 PM  

I'm with Alex. I blame Dr. Gwin at Southern Utah University in Cedar City, Utah for turning me off to politics. Literally, in the photo you selected AA, Obama looks like a jackass.

Brad James said...
Oct 16, 2008, 1:28:00 PM  

This is all part of George W. Bush and Bud Selig's conspiracy to force the Designated Hitter rule on the National League! Mark my words.

Anonymous said...
Oct 16, 2008, 1:59:00 PM  

Fox actually gave 30 minutes to Barack Obama??????? Surprise of the century....

As far as baseball goes, is 18 minutes really that big of a difference?

Justin F. said...
Oct 16, 2008, 2:14:00 PM  

I'm hoping for a sweep, so we don't see a Game 6.

Anonymous said...
Oct 16, 2008, 9:51:00 PM  

Only by 8 minutes. Cry me a river. FOX will probably get better ratings from that than the previous 5 game share combined with Rays-Phils.

Anonymous said...
Oct 16, 2008, 11:25:00 PM  

What a bunch of fucking morons here. The RNC and John McCain had the whole NY-Northern NJ area in gridlock last month when they moved up the kickoff to accomodate McCain's acceptance speech.

As always, it's okay if you are a Republican. But more importantly, they really have nothing left but bitching about Obama these days, which just makes them look more foolish when they are trounced in a couple of weeks.

Anonymous said...
Oct 17, 2008, 8:00:00 AM  

I think the difference there, last poster with no name, is that the RNC speech was scheduled before the NFL game was. But this campaign ad (an ad, not a major event like a convention speech, just an ad) was plopped down at an inconvenient time.

Of course they're only saying it because it's Obama. And of course Obama would be saying the exact same things if the roles were reversed.

But that doesn't make it any less annoying. The only good part is the lack of a forty-five minute pre-game nonsense.

Anonymous said...
Oct 17, 2008, 2:38:00 PM  

Also, it appears there is some confusion in this thread about the difference between Fox Television and Fox News. The two aren't closely related. So any criticism of "arch-conservative" Fox is off-base. Any network that shows stuff like "Temptation Island" and whatever else they show is obviously not too conservative.

Anonymous said...
Oct 17, 2008, 2:41:00 PM  

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