Fox Sports launches direct challenge to ESPN dominance

[Plankton]

Fox has over 20 regional networks with MLB, nba, NHL, as well as college sports and the UFC to just name a few. These regional networks will be fueling FS1 with a lot of live events. Fox has the properties to make this work and it should be great to have another location to centralize all these sports. Can't wait.

NBC has a similar setup to this, and has not been able to put the slightest dent in ESPN. The Fox channel will not be able to carry the NHL - the NBC national contract is exclusive. Trust me, without the larger rights to the sports, and not the regional sports net flavor, this will be a huge money loser. They will be competing for the same table scraps that CBS and NBC are fighting, and losing, over.

 

[LatinMind]

I dont see the hate for espn. Some things they say are questionable but all media does. I watch espn and like it.

 

[03EBZ06]

I'm glad about this, ESPN needs competition and I hope FOX's new venture is a successful one. We need more options besides ESPN.

 

[AmericasTeam81]

I'm glad about this, ESPN needs competition and I hope FOX's new venture is a successful one. We need more options besides ESPN.

Amen!

 

[jumanji]

CNN had one in the 80s with the late Nick Charles and Fred Hickman. Then there was a couple in the 90's. Fox had one with Olbermann and Kevin Frazier and there was CNNSI. Neither panned out and I don't think this one will either. First you are probably going to have to find what channel this new one with FOX will be on. Second ESPN has such a built in brand whether we like it or not it's going to be hard to pull their audience to something else that is essentially talking about the same thing.

charles and hickman were great. i was really sad to see cnnsi go. it didn't have the sports contracts behind it though that fox has. espn has a lot of content whereas cnnsi was just a news station dedicated to sports. fox will have a chance. i thought cbs was going to try and do this too but i guess fox beat them to the punch.

 

[Plankton]

You're basically right in the main concept of what has to happen.

But, sports leagues will always seek out the largest bidder. FOX was supposed to have no chance in college football with ABC/ESPN and CBS having college football wrapped up. But, when FOX got the opportunity to broadcast college football nationally they were able to wrap up a deal. I believe that the other sports will follow and at least give FOX the opportunity to acquire the programming rights. FOX already has baseball and football anyway.

I'm more concerned that FOX will think they have to follow ESPN's exact model and more or less become an ESPN clone. What it needs to do is differentiate itself from ESPN and make viewers believe that the quality of programming is superior to ESPN. If they try to copy ESPN, then they run into the problem of only getting viewers for games on TV instead of missing out on the huge media market which ESPN has a monopoly on.







YR

The "model" as far as on-air presentation doesn't matter. It's whether you have the events that people want to watch.

Fox's first crack at this failed for two reasons. One, Murdoch (which is rare for him) didn't have the stomach to lose money they way they ended up losing it. Two, they didn't have contracts with the major conferences and sports to provide events.

Now, they are in competition with NBC Sports Network and CBS Sports Network in addition to ESPN for the events. ESPN's model has created an astronomical financial advantage for bidding on events. Fox, for this launch, will get $0.31 per subscriber per month for the carriage of the channel (which works out to being $2.7M per month). NBCSN and CBSSN average roughly the same (NBCSN is in around 82 million homes, CBSSN is in around 63 million homes). ESPN is in over 100 million homes, and gets the biggest per subscriber rate in the industry - roughly $5.00 per sub (this is to carry all of the ESPN portfolio). That works out to them making over $500M per month just on subs. This is with no advertising sales.

Very hard to compete with them on rights fees with that kind of ledger.