Other than changing the channel on your TV, we generally have little control over the more technical aspects of what’s on the screen. We (usually) can’t control resolution. We can’t control frame rate.
And that makes it all the more frustrating when things don’t work the way we expect. Case in point: Something often is amiss with live sports on Fox. And it’s not just one sport. Something was up with the standard-definition broadcast during theWorld Cup. It’s made the NFL on Fox look bad.
And to this day I don’t know if it’s the frame rate. I don’t know if it’s the resolution. It could well be both. But I do know that it’s readily apparent, on streaming services, on cable, and via an over-the-air broadcast. It’s so bad that my mother flat-out refuses to watch sports on Fox. Perhaps you don’t have this issue in your MSA (that’s short for metropolitan statistical area, which is how TV regions are doled out), in which case, consider yourself lucky.
Is this Fox’s fault? Is it my local Fox affiliate messing things up? I don’t know. And it doesn’t really matter. It’s not that I don’t care why my Fox NFL broadcasts look bad — I care more about doing something about it. And I’ve found a couple of workarounds.
Watch sports on Fox in 4K
The first workaround for bad sports quality on Fox is the less acceptable of the two because it requires spending more money. But the simple fact is that when I’ve had the option to watch something in 4K versus the standard version, it looks better. And not just in the sense that there are more pixels on the screen — because at the end of the day that’s what 4K is versus 1080p (or 1080i, but we’re really not going to get into those weeds here), or even 720p resolution.
The more important difference for me when I’m watching sports on Fox in 4K is that the frame rate issues disappear. Things are smooth as you’d expect at 60 frames per second, which should be mandatory for watching any sports, live or otherwise.
Watch on the Fox Sports app
Then there’s the option that should make more sense for more people since it shouldn’t cost you anything extra. If your NFL game on Fox looks bad and has that janky frame rate, try watching it in theFox Sports appon whatever platform you’re using. All the major streaming platforms and likely all of the smart TV operating systems have access to the Fox Sports app. (Especially since Super Bowl 2023 is on Fox.)
To be clear, that’s not a wholly satisfactory solution, either. I shouldn’t have to load up another app to show me the same thing that the service I’m paying for in the first place is showing me, only at a lower quality.
