Fox Sports 1 will launch in August with the hopes of taking on ESPN in the 24-hour sports market. There's a lot of money to be made in cable sports, but competing directly with the World Wide Leader will be a tall order for the new Fox network.?
From left, Jay Glazer, Howie Long, Terry Bradshaw and Michael Strahan attend the Fox Sports Media Upfront party celebrating the new Fox Sports 1 network on Tuesday, March 5, 2013 in New York.
Charles Sykes/Invision/AP
EnlargeESPN has been dominating the cable sports landscape for decades, but now it has some competition.?
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The Fox Sports Media group unveiled plans yesterday for Fox Sports 1, a 24-hour sports network meant to compete with Disney-owned behemoth ESPN and NBC Sports Network, which launched with middling success last year. Fox, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch?s NewsCorp, made the announcement at the company?s Up Fronts in New York, though many people had seen it coming well beforehand. (Fox Chief Operating Officer Eric Shanks even called it a ?poorly kept? secret in the official press announcement.)
Fox Sports 1 will launch in 90 million homes August 17, replacing the company-owned Speed channel. The initial programming will include college football and basketball, NASCAR, soccer, and UFC. ?There will also be a daily afternoon talk show hosted by Regis Philbin and a daily football show featuring the guys from FOX NFL Sunday.
?Fans are ready for an alternative to the establishment, and our goal for FS1 is to provide the best in-game experience possible, complemented by informative news, entertaining studio shows and provocative original programming,? Mr. Shanks said in the release.
?That?s how big ESPN is: In the sports world, Rupert Murdoch is the scrappy alternative,? quipped Deadspin.
Indeed, the release did seem to take specific aim at taking a piece of ESPN?s sizable cable sports pie. It?s shrewd move for the networks (there are also ?a 24-hour CBS sports channel) because the profit potential is huge. Sports programming is highly valuable in terms of advertising, because it?s one of the only things viewers still watch live on TV.? Second, cable companies pay hefty subscription fees to carry sports networks: according to research firm SNL Kagan, ESPN makes $5.54 for each household cable subscription (last year, the industry average was $0.20, according to Bloomberg). The network is set to earn over $7.31 billion in subscriber fees in 2014.
