It all comes down to the final day of the 2025 MLB season, where the New York Mets and the Cincinnati Reds enter Game 162 with identical 83-78 records. The Reds hold the crucial head-to-head tiebreaker, and this gives them a clearer path to the postseason. And for the Mets, the mission is not so simple: win the game and hope for a Reds loss.

This intense battle is for the final spot in the National League playoff, where five teams have already punched their tickets to October. Teams like the Brewers, Phillies, and Dodgers have all won their divisions and secured their spot. The Chicago Cubs and San Diego Padres have secured the first two Wild Card spots with respective 91-70 and 89-72 records. Now, the winner of this final-day battle will earn the chance to travel to Los Angeles for the Wild Card series against the Dodgers.

And in the middle of this chase, an accusation on the Fox Sports broadcasting team became a hot topic. Frank “The Tank” Fleming, who is a well-known Mets superfan and Barstool Sports personality, recently posted about the issue on X. The post read: “The Fox announcers are openly rooting for the Reds.” Now, with the final wild card spot at stake, this accusation landed like a grenade.

Fleming’s entire brand was born when a video against New Jersey Transit in 2017 went viral. In it, he angrily ranted about New Jersey Transit, which caused him to miss Mets Opening Day. So, this recent accusation against Fox fits his well-established persona. And considering Fox Sports has a fair share of broadcast controversies and perceived biases over the years, suddenly, the game itself feels secondary.

And while Fleming’s tweet put Fox Media in the spotlight, the feeling that the “MLB World” is rooting for the Reds goes much deeper. The reasons may be anything, like the Mets’ massive payrolls, a season-long collapse, or maybe the Reds’ compelling underdog stories. Now, let’s understand why fans are cheering for Cincinnati.

The fans share their reaction to the accusation

For many, it’s a classic case of rooting against the financial giant. One fan wrote, “That’s because there is nothing funnier than a 300+ million dollar roster missing the playoffs😂😂😂”. For the 2025 season, the Mets’ payroll is $320 million,  and that is second after the Dodgers.

And this follows a trend under owner Steve Cohen, as the team also had the highest payroll in 2023 and 2024.  Most recently, they signed Juan Soto to a record-breaking 15-year, $765 million contract. And when you add that to the nine-figure deals for players like Francisco Lindor and Edwin Díaz, the team’s total financial value easily surpasses a billion dollars. That’s why one fan repeated the same feeling, “Because a billion-dollar roster missing the playoffs is hilarious.” 

For fans of the Milwaukee Brewers, this playoff race offered a chance at indirect revenge against the team that knocked them out of the postseason last year. So, one wrote, “Brewers will lose tonight and tomorrow just to shove it up Mets’ asses for last year lol.”

One fan even said, “Because nobody wants another big market team in the playoffs”. This feeling is understandable considering the Dodgers, Phillies, and Cubs, among the already qualified teams, represent three of the four largest media markets in the country, and they are also in the top 10 in terms of franchise valuation. So a team like Cincinnati that ranks 28th out of 30 MLB teams in valuation establishes a powerful statement that Baseball matters.

At the end, the most powerful criticism came from the Mets’ own fanbase. As one fan said, “as a Met fan, I can honestly say, this Reds team is much more likable than the over hyped, over-priced, underperforming Mets”. This is an honest confession from a fan who witnessed the team’s slow collapse with a sky-high expectation and feels the Reds—with their low payroll and young roster—were a more deserving team for the October baseball.