Fox NFL Sunday Airs URL That Directs Visitors to Pro-Trump ‘Let’s Go Brandon’ Website

Colby HallNov 29th, 2021, 8:19 am
 

Fox NFL Sunday aired a short segment Sunday morning that warned NFL fans that the Philadelphia Eagles have returned to a viable threat, a return to greater “Fly, Eagles, Fly” glory.

However, the creative minds that produced it the bit satirized the Emergency Alert System (EAS), which may have violated FCC regulations. (ESPN was slapped with a $20,000 fine for a similar violation last August.) They also mocked up a joke URL, “FoxNFLEmergencyAlert.com,” which was featured graphically on the old school promo, complete with a 4:3 ratio size.  But because we live in a hyper-divided partisan time? Someone did a thing.

The “joke” URL was never registered, and so it was then immediately grabbed by a viewer, who then redirected all traffic to a pro-Trump website. It features a massive “Let’s Go Brandon!” banner and images of former President Donald Trump with Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) and a picture of President Joe Biden before a photoshopped image of George Washington flipping him off.  Are you with me? Weird times we are living in, for sure.

This weird and strange story was initially flagged by Emmy-award-winning meteorologist Geoff Fox, who first noted how the satirical use of the EAS will almost certainly lead to an FCC fine for Fox Broadcasting. He also noted the URL was officially registered at 12:21 PM on Sunday.  The segment featuring the URL aired just two minutes prior, according to television transcript database TVEyes, which strongly suggests, of course, that the URL was not registered by anyone involved with the segment but by an eagle-eyed viewer eager to troll.

So to sum up this weird story? Fox Sports producers thought they did a clever segment evoking nostalgic EAS interruptions from viewers’ past. But not only did they seem to run afoul of FCC standards, but they also neglected to register the joke URL, which someone grabbed for political purposes.

Details people. Details.

You can watch the segment above via Fox Broadcasting.

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Colby Hall - Founding Editor

Colby Hall is the Founding Editor of Mediaite.com. He is also a Peabody Award-winning television producer of non-fiction narrative programming as well as a terrific dancer and preparer of grilled meats.