in a side note for fans in the united states, many viewers of the directv service were unable to watch the game on either espn2, which had the national game rights, or nesn, which had broadcast rights for the red sox in that region. the transponders from which the channels are uplinked to viewers of the standard definition feed failed some hours before the first pitch at 6 a.m. eastern time. the screen showed a "searching for satellite signal" error message, then directv put up a static screen apologizing for technical difficulties. those watching directv on a high-definition feed were not affected. the error was not fixed until approximately noon et; both networks replayed the game coverage after that, as had been scheduled due to the enormous time difference between the u.s. and japan.