Fox Plans to Take on ESPN with a National Sports Channel

[thecoolone]

Bloomberg is reporting that News Corp. is currently planning to launch a new national sports network to challenge Disney's ESPN.

from Bloomberg:

Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. (NWSA) is taking steps to start a national U.S. sports network on cable television aimed at challenging Walt Disney Co. (DIS)’s ESPN, according to people with knowledge of the situation.
News Corp. is assembling the required rights from pay-TV carriers and sports organizations, said the people, who requested anonymity because talks are private. While a final decision to move forward hasn’t been made, the company is considering converting its Fuel action-sports network to the new channel, two of the people said.
With a national network, Fox would join Comcast Corp. (CMCSA)’s NBC Sports Network and CBS Corp. (CBS)’s CBS Sports Network in taking on the dominant ESPN. News Corp. last year secured rights to the Pac-12 Conference and Big-12 Conference games and owns 20 regional sports networks. The company in October won TV rights to soccer’s World Cup in 2018 and 2022.
“The success of all these networks will depend on the quality of their sports rights,” David Joyce, an analyst at Miller Tabak & Co. in New York, said in an interview. “There’s been a lot of competition for those rights and that’s driven up costs.”

The channel will reportedly be known as "Fox Sports 1" and various reports speculate that News Corp. could replace either its' action sports channel Fuel TV or motor sports channel Speed with Fox Sports 1.

 

[MDawg]

I'd be happy to see Speed go. It's a worthless channel. Fuel isn't bad though.

So will the sports reporting be "fair and balanced" too?

 

[Space Cadet]

Good luck to them. It'll be an uphill battle for them to take some of ESPN's territory in the sports world. The only somewhat threat to ESPN is the NBC Sports Network(formerly known as Versus) and even then, they only have second-tier sports on their network(but they'll get a boost this summer with the Olympics). And I don't even get the CBS Sports Network. I have seen a lot of ads for their new show with Jim Rome.

 

[Lord Dalek]

Ummm... don't they technically already have one?

 

[bluenowait]

Ummm... don't they technically already have one?

If you're thinking of Fox Sports Net, technically no. FSN is not a nationawide cable network, like ESPN, but rather a chain of regional sports networks througout the country.

 

[TMC1982]

Ty Duffy at The Big Lead says the potential Fox cable sports network may not knock down ESPN, but http://thebiglead.com/index.php/2012/03/30/national-fox-sports-network -may-not-rival-espn-but-has-pieces-to-be-formidable/]could give it a run for its money[/url].