A preview of the 2023 Women's World Cup schedule on TV

Just like the men’s version of the World Cup last winter, this year’s women’s edition of the planet’s most prestigious soccer tournament is being conducted in a faraway land from the United States. But unlike their male counterparts, the U.S. females will be playing some of their games in American prime time, matches that Fox will televise nationally beginning Friday.

That’s because the time difference now is much more favorable for stateside viewers. New Zealand, where the American women are playing their group-stage matches, is 17 hours ahead of St. Louis. Qatar, where the men’s games were held, was nine hours ahead of the Central Time Zone.

Accommodations were made to cater to the U.S. audience for the men’s games, but they still were outside of prime time. The Americans’ group-stage contests began at 10 p.m. local time — 1 p.m. CT.

But the much bigger spread between New Zealand and the continental U.S. provides more reasonable flexibility to appease American viewers. The U.S. kicks off its schedule by facing Vietnam in Auckland, with kickoff at 8 p.m. CT on Friday. That’s 1 p.m. Saturday at Eden Park, where the game will be played.

The team’s second match, against the Netherlands, is in the same time slot on Wednesday. But Game 3, against Portugal, is at 2 a.m. CT on Aug. 1. That’s 7 p.m. in Auckland.

All those U.S. contests will be on broadcast TV, even the one in the wee hours, as Fox (KTVI, Channel 2 locally) is making a big commitment to televising the tournament on its “main” outlet in addition to cable component FS1. There are 29 matches scheduled for “Big Fox,” including all contests from the quarterfinals through the championship game of the monthlong tournament that began Thursday. The other 35 are on FS1.

The over-the-air business model, which after decades of losing sports programming to cable channels, is beginning to get some of that inventory back as cord-cutting has hit pay-TV providers hard. Plus, there has been a surge of viewership interest recently in women’s sports, and this event fits that blueprint.

The tourney is being played in two countries for the first time — 29 contests are set for New Zealand, the other 35 (including the championship match) in Australia. The final is to be played in Sydney, which is 15 hours ahead of St. Louis.

If the Americans make it out of the group stage, their next match also would be on Fox — a quarterfinal contest at 9 p.m. on Aug. 5 if they finish first in their pod, at 4 a.m. on Aug. 6 if they are second. The times are not attractive for the tourney’s semifinals (3 a.m. on Aug. 15 and 5 a.m. on Aug. 16) as well as the title contest (5 a.m. on Aug. 20). Those all are Central Time.

Some viewers jilted?

There already have been shutouts in the living rooms for some TV viewers, as well as on the fields for soccer players, for the tournament with no end in sight.

Unless there is a settlement to an ongoing financial squabble between KTVI owner Nexstar and a major programming provider, the remaining Women’s World Cup games — and all other programming on Channel 2 and sister station KPLR (Channel 11) — will remain blacked out to customers of DirecTV and related outlets DirecTV Stream and U-Verse.

St. Louis is one of about 40 Fox markets that are impacted by the dispute, in which Nexstar is asking DirecTV to pay more for its channels than DirecTV is willing to spend. The blackout began on July 2.

One way for customers of those services to get around the blockage is to install an antenna to pick up KTVI and KPLR over the air.

On the air

JP Dellacamera, who lived in St. Louis for several years in the 1980s and broadcast games of the Major Indoor Soccer League’s Steamers, is the lead play-by-play announcer for the Fox/FS1 telecasts.

He has a wealth of soccer broadcasting experience over his four-decade career, including having had calls on 10 men’s and seven women’s World Cup tournaments. He’s working with analyst Aly Wagner, a two-time gold medalist for the U.S. women’s national soccer team.

Rob Stone serves as the lead studio host. Fox has added former ESPN betting analyst Chris “The Bear” Fallica to its roster, and he will serve in that capacity for the tourney.

Other ways to watch: Telemundo has the Spanish-language telecast of all 64 games, and foxsports.com will stream the games. They also will be available on streaming services that carry Fox, FS1, Telemundo and Peacock.

Diamondbacks leave Bally

The aforementioned financial troubles of the cable-TV business, especially of regional sports networks, hit another pothole this week when Bally Sports Arizona, telecaster of Arizona Diamondbacks baseball games, relinquished those rights after recently missing a payment to the team.

Major League Baseball immediately took over in a move approved by federal bankruptcy judge Christopher Lopez. Diamond Sports Group, a division of Sinclair Broadcasting that is the parent company of the Bally Sports brand of regional sports networks (including Cardinals and Blues telecaster Bally Sports Midwest) is in bankruptcy. About six weeks ago, Lopez ruled that Diamond was required to catch up on payments that had been late, and not in full, to three clubs in addition to Arizona — Cleveland, Texas and Minnesota — but left open the possibility of the parties of working out their differences.

That did not happen with the Diamondbacks. Bally Sports Arizona previously lost the NBA and WNBA teams in Phoenix, leaving it with just the NHL franchise among the major pro sports clubs there.

Although there is no over-the-air component to the new setup in Arizona, MLB is making the games available for anyone in the market to stream, as well as through cable and satellite TV providers. Previously, they were available only to customers of Bally Sports Arizona (as is the case with BSM’s Cardinals telecasts).

Diamond has said it plans to make its scheduled payments to all the other big-league teams it televises through the end of the season.