The story about the battle between Fox and ESPN over World Cup coverage has potentially sparked a world media war.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, Michael McCarthy of Front Office Sports wrote that \u201c[s]ome Fox executives are frustrated<\/a>\u201d by the perception that ESPN is downplaying the international soccer tournament being mostly hosted on American soil.<\/p>\n On Wednesday, ESPN pushed back via a statement issued to Drew Lerner of Awful Announcing.<\/p>\n \u201cOur sole focus is providing fans with the most comprehensive coverage<\/a> of sports across platforms daily,\u201d ESPN executive Mike Foss told Lerner. \u201cWhile World Cup footage that can be utilized by non-rights holders (as is the case in the U.S.) is severely limited, ESPN is delivering world-class analysis, journalism, and context in spite of those restrictions.\u201d<\/p>\n Also on Wednesday, Fox issued a statement denying the FOS report.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is simply not true<\/a>,\u201d Fox said in a statement issued to Andrew Marchand of The Athletic. \u201cWe are focused on our own coverage of the biggest event in the world, not on what others choose to air. And frankly, it\u2019s insulting to ESPN to suggest they would pass on covering it. This is all absurd.\u201d<\/p>\n In his tweet setting up the Fox statement, Marchand fired a shot at FOS in explaining Fox had \u201chit a boiling point\u201d regarding the \u201cfalse story\u201d about network frustrations.<\/p>\n Then, McCarthy said in response to Marchand\u2019s tweet: \u201cGood for you. I stand by my story<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n