Weather-related time changes possible

Tuesday night, Major League Baseball announced Wednesday’s World Series Game 2 would start an hour earlier than scheduled, based on rain in the forecast. Fox adjusted its TV schedule to accommodate the change.

So when bad weather is predicted, why can’t NASCAR do the same for its events? Well, it can — under the right circumstances.

“Every situation is unique, but we would consider altering a scheduled race start time due to weather, especially if we thought it would benefit fans,” said Steve Herbst, NASCAR senior vice president, broadcasting and production, in a statement to USA TODAY Sports on Wednesday. “There are a multitude of variables that would factor into such a decision that would include tracks, broadcast partners and all of our stakeholders.

“That said, we would be open to having those discussions on a case-by-case basis and have had initial conversations of how that could work in 2017.”

Traditionally, NASCAR has been reluctant to move up the green flag time by more than 10 or 15 minutes — using the listed TV time as a barrier (when the race broadcast begins). That can be frustrating in situations when rain is on the way and laps could be run in the dry weather before a storm moves in.

This season, several of the 32 Sprint Cup races run have been delayed, postponed or cut short because of weather issues, including both races at Pocono Raceway, the fall race at Charlotte Motor Speedway (Hurricane Matthew) and the spring race at Texas Motor Speedway.

But there are additional factors NASCAR has to deal with that other sports don’t. For example, World Series tickets do not have a time or date printed on them; NASCAR tickets have both. There isn’t language about what happens in the event a start time is moved up. They do carry a disclaimer that the ticket will be valid should the event be rescheduled. Another consideration: NASCAR fans often travel from farther away than fans for sports that have home events.

NASCAR has a 10-year, $8.2 billion deal with NBC, Fox and their sports networks, and TV likely plays a large role in the decision to change a start time.

NBC and Fox declined to comment to USA TODAY Sports for this story, instead referring comment to NASCAR. But it’s clear there’s flexibility if the sport’s officials, the network and the venue all agree. That was what happened for Wednesday night’s World Series game, and it could potentially be the case at some point in NASCAR.