Getty Miss South Africa 2017, Demi-Leigh Nel-Peters (L), is crowned new Miss Universe 2017.
When the Miss Universe 2018 competition was set to air live on Fox, the Seahawks vs. 49ers football game went into overtime, delaying the broadcast. Although Fox TV’s twitter account tweeted “The wait is over! #MissUniverse 2018 starts NOW,” the network continued airing the football game in locations where the game was programmed to air.
According to the Seattle Seahawks website, the game was broadcast on Fox throughout the United States: “FOX (channel 13 in Seattle) will broadcast the game with Dick Stockton (play-by-play), Mark Schlereth (analyst), and Jen Hale (sidelines) on the call.”
Concerned fans of the international pageant were quick to react on Twitter. @alistagnitta wrote, “EXCEPT WHY IS THIS FOOTBALL GAME ON MY SCREEN.” Several told Fox to “TURN OFF THE FOOTBALL.” As the tied 23-23 football game continued to air, with the announcer reminding viewers again and again that the game could not end in a tie, Fox TV was tweeting updates about Ne-Yo’s performance and introducing the judging panel suggesting that the competition was underway, even though many were unable to watch it live.
After the game ended in overtime, with the San Francisco 49ers winning, @FoxTV updated confused fans, writing “Stay tuned! #MissUniverse is coming up right after football.” The tweets suggesting the pageant had already started were unexplained, but the original tweeting announcing its start was reposted after the show officially began to air across the US.
Stay tuned! #MissUniverse is coming up right after football.
Due to the delay, Miss Universe 2018 began airing on Fox at 7:30pm ET/6:30 CT, and is scheduled to conclude at 10:30pm ET. Nevertheless, the show went as scheduled and appeared to air live elsewhere, since Miss Universe updated their Twitter throughout the conversation according to the original schedule. There are spoilers below the text, revealing both the Top 5 and the Miss Universe 2018 winner.
While those affected by the delay watched the top 10 compete in swimwear, Miss Universe was already congratulating the top 5 on Twitter:
If fans of the competition were still following along on Twitter, Miss Universe announced their winner almost a half hour before it aired on Fox.