04/19/24
August 18, 2013
Fox Sports 1 Challenges the Beast of Bristol: On Saturday, the sports channel Speed became Fox Sports 1, putting a direct 24/7 sports news and live event rival to ESPN in 90 million homes. The network takes on SportsCenter with Fox Sports Live and will broadcast Major League Baseball, World Cup soccer, Pac-12 and Big 12 college football, U.S. Open golf, and Ultimate Fighting Championship. Soon, Fox Soccer will be disappearing as a cable channel, though its Internet broadcasts and website will continue.
Maybe? Remember, most hockey franchises have their local TV deals through Fox Sports channels. Hopefully, that will give the main Fox Sports 1 channel reason to promote hockey more than ESPN does.
posted by NoMich at 08:36 AM on August 19, 2013
And hockey highlights will still be few and far between.
Maybe not. The new anchors for Fox Sports Live are Canadian stalwarts Jay Onrait and Dan O'Toole. They were poached from TSN this year.
I'm disappointed I won't be able to watch them in their new home as there is no home for FS1 on the Canadian cable/sat lineup.
posted by grum@work at 12:03 PM on August 19, 2013
Thank the governments; they banned channels on systems across the border in the 90's ... thus we don't get TSN or CBC.
About the regional channels, I'm guessing that will be where their baseball programming will come. I'm also guessing they won't be able to have much, if any, hockey given the NHL Network and NBC Universal should have national rights most nights.
posted by jjzucal at 02:43 PM on August 19, 2013
Watched one or two things on FS1 since it came on. So far there's nothing to distinguish it from The World-Wide Leader, other than a lack of talking (empty) heads. They did a 1 on 1 interview with Tom Brady that was quite interesting, if unrevealing -- strictly football, a bit about Belichick, some on his personal life, but nothing controversial. Mostly it was Brady being Brady. True enough it was barely more than a fluff piece, but I found it far more easy to watch than the usual "let's see if we can do a 'gotcha' on this guy, and if not edit the tape to make him look bad" drivel. We'll see how it goes as the product matures.
posted by Howard_T at 04:30 PM on August 19, 2013
Follow up to the above: Watched another thing called "The Crowd Goes Wild" with Regis Philbin, the 2 guys from TSN, some blond with a Brit accent (maybe Aussie or New Zealand), and another guy whose name escapes me. It needs work -- a lot of work. It started out to be a discussion of Dempster vs A-Rod. Interestingly enough, Philbin was the only one who had a clue about baseball, and he was way too much of a Yankees fan to have an objective view. Next couple of segments were all about Regis, including a live broadcast from a trotting racetrack in Delaware where a pacer named "Regis the Horse" was running (and winning in what might have been a boat race). This was a so-called birthday gift for Philbin. A soccer segment featured the blond, who displayed a great lack of knowledge of the EPL. One feature had each panelist arguing one side of a question, then having to switch sides several times during the argument. This was done solo, that is only one panelist argued a question, and the others each had a different question. With panelists who were knowledgeable about the sport in question, this had possibilities. With this set of panelists it was not worth the air time. My suggestion would be to turn this into a complete parody of sports panel programs, with some good writing, and it might have some value. Overall, I probably won't watch this particular show for a long time, and then only to see if they've made it any better.
posted by Howard_T at 09:00 PM on August 19, 2013
And hockey highlights will still be few and far between. (Half) jokes aside, I'm hoping that Fox Sports 1 does well. ESPN could use some competition.