NEW YORK (AFP) — Major League Baseball has agreed to a 15-minute delay in the start of a possible sixth game of the World Series to allow Fox television to join the US networks airing a special by Barack Obama.
The Democratic presidential candidate has purchased 30 minutes of time on each major US network starting at 8 p.m. Eastern time (0000 GMT) on October 29 but Fox would have had a conflict with baseball's best-of-seven championship.
National League champion Philadelphia will face either defending champion Boston or worst-to-first fairy-tale team Tampa Bay in the World Series, which would have had a sixth game if necessary start at 8:20 Eastern.
Fox announced Thursday that Major League Baseball had agreed to push back the first pitch to 8:35, allowing Fox to sell 30 minutes of advertising time to Obama, who is running against Republican John McCain for the US presidency.
"Fox will accommodate Senator Obama's desire to communicate with voters in this longform format," Fox said in a statement.
"We are pleased that Major League Baseball has agreed to delay the first pitch of the World Series Game Six for a few minutes in order for Fox to carry his program on October 29.
"If requested, the network would be willing to make similar time available to Senator McCain's campaign."
The time involved for the special ahead of the November 4 election will be some of the costliest in US sports television, but Obama has been awash in funding and outspending McCain in key battleground states.
Obama and McCain spent a combined 11 million dollars to buy US prime-time television advertisements during NBC's broadcasts of the Beijing Olympics this summer.
The move, underscoring Obama's emerging financial advantage over his rival as the campaign enters its final stretch, will cost Obama millions on each network but gives him an unprecedented platform for a major-party candidate less than a week before US voters go to the ballot box.
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