FOX Sports recently secured record ratings for the Indianapolis 500, attaining an average of 7.09 million viewers for the event in its first year with the media rights for the NTT IndyCar Series. Yet leading up to the race, some viewers of Major League Baseball broadcasts by FOX Sports observed that fans were dumping milk on themselves after monumental moments in the games, resembling the tradition at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway where the winner indulges in a drink of the beverage after the race. The apparent cross-promotional effort drew the attention of fans on social media in addition to various sports media personalities, including SiriusXM podcast host Katie Nolan.
During a recent edition of her Casuals podcast, Nolan discussed how she observed that a fan poured milk on his face after Boston Red Sox outfielder Jarren Duran hit a home run. Similar occurrences took place after the New York Mets defeated the Los Angeles Dodgers in a broadcast window that ended up garnering an average of 2.3 million viewers, the most-watched baseball telecast of the season for FOX thus far. Participants of the stunt also wore Indianapolis 500 shirts, and a highlight video detailing the instances was featured on social media by the FOX MLB broadcast property.
“Pretty obviously a plant, right?,” Nolan said. “Maybe I’m from an era – I’m from the truth era. I know we’re post-truth now, I know nothing matters anymore, but I just feel like in a building full of fans, did you really need to plant a fake fan to try to promote [the] Indianapolis 500? Couldn’t you have just done that and highlighted the actual fans instead of having somebody pretend to be a fan and to care so much that they, what, brought their own milk?”
Nolan questioned how a fan could get a jug of milk into Fenway Park similar to the kind used at the Indianapolis 500. In the end, she concluded that it had to have emanated from a production truck, and while she understood the allure of television magic, she underscored that fans were watching the broadcast and could not relate to what was taking place.
“I always have bristled against it because I always have been, ‘There is a world of people interacting with our content. We should engage those people in the content that we’re making,’” Nolan said. “It’s obviously much easier – like they say it’s hard to work with babies and animals – it’s hard to work with internet commenters, sure, but it’s like kind of the job, and working with fans is kind of the job, and I just feel like faking it implies that the real thing isn’t interesting enough on its own, and then what would this all be for.
Nolan did not like what transpired and accentuated how diehard sports fans are being priced out of going to games because they are too expensive, including regular-season MLB games. As someone who used to work at FS1, Nolan also contended that some of the tweets displayed on shows she worked on said to have come from fans allegedly came from producers making new accounts.
“I’ll take a stand and say don’t show me a fake fan celebrating a home run because you want me to watch a different property that you have the rights to. Talk to me about the race and why it’s cool. I would love to see the numbers on the ROI of how many people tuned in because they saw a guy at the Sox game chug milk. I would love to know.”
Barrett Media produces daily content on the music, news, and sports media industries. To stay updated, sign up for our newsletters and get the latest information delivered straight to your inbox.
