Fans furious – Baseball fans expecting NBC’s Sunday Night coverage of the Yankees-Red Sox at Fenway Park were met with golf instead after the PGA Tour’s Travelers Championship ran late due to thunderstorms. NBC stuck with the tournament, which didn’t even finish, pushing vie
Sunday night was supposed to be about baseball’s biggest stages, Fenway Park included. Instead, when fans tuned into NBC at the scheduled start time, they found golf.
NBC’s Sunday Night Baseball was set to broadcast the final game of a four-game series between the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox. Coverage was expected to begin at 7pm ET, with first pitch scheduled for 7:20pm. But at 7pm. viewers who switched on NBC were shocked to see PGA Tour coverage of the Travelers Championship rather than the rivalry clash.
The reason lay in the weather. The Travelers Championship suffered a lengthy weather delay after thunderstorms rolled in over Connecticut. The final day of play was suspended for nearly 90 minutes. running well past the 7pm start time of Sunday Night Baseball. Play resumed at 7:20pm as the light began to fade—but NBC still didn’t move to the pregame or switch over to the Yankees-Red Sox matchup.
Instead, NBC stayed on the golf coverage, showed on-course replays from earlier in the day, and even switched to the Women’s PGA Championship rather than bring baseball back into the lineup. Fans were left with the Yankees-Red Sox game only available on Peacock and NBCSN.
Adding to the frustration, the tournament wasn’t even finished. Fans watched as Scottie Scheffler sank an eight-foot putt on the 18th to force a playoff against Viktor Hovland, which was set to take place on Monday morning.
The anger spilled quickly onto social media. One fan wrote on X: “Was listening on radio for the first couple of innings. came home and threw on NBC only to find that they were showing golf instead of Red Sox-Yankees. ‘RIVALRY!’” Another fumed: “This is absolutely B*****T that the Yankees game isn’t on NBC right now. Unacceptable. This should not be allowed to happen.”.
Others described the time wasted trying to locate the broadcast. “You want Sunday Night Baseball you broadcast Sunday Night Baseball. You don’t finish a golf tournament four people care about on NBC. Took me 25 minutes to figure out my peacock log in info for my outside tv,” one post read.
More reactions followed. including a message aimed directly at the stakes of the time slot: “Once again NBC has disrupted Sunday night baseball. thus time for a golf outing on the National broadcast instead of Yanks/ Red Sox .Maybe by the 4th inning you will get to see Rodon verses Grey. Torture for Sunday night baseball fans,” a fan wrote. Another said: “Yankees fans are about to unleash all of their frustrations on this golf tournament. ” before adding: “Imagine airing golf over the Yankees/Red Sox game.”.
On the field, the Red Sox made the decision feel even harder to swallow. They clinched a 5-4 win over the Yankees thanks to a 10th-inning walk-off home run by Jarren Duran.
NBC Sunday Night Baseball Yankees Red Sox Fenway Park PGA Tour Travelers Championship Scottie Scheffler Viktor Hovland Women’s PGA Championship Jarren Duran walk-off home run baseball broadcast controversy