Check the programming man, they are still going to have a lot of that. Not sure for how long but at least initially. http://msn.foxsports.com/other/page/foxsports-schedule
DirecTV - Channel 219 (HD/SD) Dish Network - Channel 150 (HD/SD) Comcast: 857? AT&T U-verse - Channel 1652 (HD) Verizon FiOS - Channel 583 (HD)
I remember when Fox first came onto the scene. All they had was Married With Children and the Tracy Ullman Show (with a short cartoon called The Simpsons) and no one thought they could compete with the big 3 networks. Then they surprised everyone and lured the NFL away from CBS and the rest is history. Point being, you never know about these things.
There is going to be a heated competition for live sports because it is the entertainment form where the viewer is most likely to watch (wade through) commercials. It's good because sports fans will have more options and sports teams will have more revenue. It's bad because the higher costs will necessitate even more commercials. I already cannot watch live football, and I noticed in this years Majors (golf) that the Thursday and Friday rounds had way more commercials. DVR's MF's you cannot make me watch your Cialis ads.
I think there is room for another cable sports channel, but I think Fox Sports 1 misplayed their launch a bit. They haven't made any bones about the fact that their channel is going to be a sports channel for jocks or people that think ESPN is too nerdy. The problem is that I don't know anyone that would accuse ESPN's programming of being too smart or appealing to nerds exclusively. If anything, I think they should have positioned themselves to be something of an anti-ESPN. Instead of hiring ex-athletes to be analysts, hire guys from Football Outsiders, Baseball Prospectus or 82 Games. As other posters here and writers all over the country have mentioned leading up to this launch, live events are where the money is. Fox Sports 1 already has rights to more live sports than CBS Sports Network or NBC Sports Network, but they still lag way behind ESPN networks. They also don't seem to have a lot of respect among the cable operators. Apparently, their fee per subscriber is just 23 cents. By comparison, NBC Sports Network is something like 32 cents and ESPN is over five dollars. But at least they chose to go live at the last minute with at a lower fee rather than hold out.
Watching their version of sportscenter right now, these guys suck. One of them just commented on how hard it is to read the prompter... Seriously.
They did the SportsCentre in Canada. Give them time, they'll grow on you. I caught them a few times when I went to Vancouver this past winter. A few problems I have with Fox Sports Live. 1) You've reduced my nearly 50" LED TV to 28" with those damn graphics. Stop it. Take that stupid thing on the right side of the screen off! 2) Holy crap, so they want to go completely opposite of what ESPN wants to do it seems..that interview segment with Mike Tyson was hard to watch. ESPN = too scripted Fox Sports 1 = too unscripted. We need a middle ground!
I thought this was going to be vastly different from what they did on the old national FSN shows... but so far, I'm getting the same vibes. Onrait and O'toole are solid... and I think they really bring something fresh to the sports highlight show (even though they're just doing what everybody used to do), but are they going to anchor this show everyday, weekends included? Who are their backups? Agreed on the graphics taking up most of the screen. Fox used to be the "innovative" ones... and since they helped pioneer the age of "on-air constant scoreboard"... I thought it would be cool if they went AWAY from the ticker/on-air stuff. Seriously, who gets their sports updates/scores from the ticker anymore anyways?
I feel this version is worse than the old Fox Sports News shows. I actually preferred those shows to this crap which is basically a combination of Best Damn Sports Show w/Fox Sports News. (I know it's early days). Just not liking it right now.
Nothing ever holds a candle to ESPN and probably never will. Yes their reporting and agenda suck but they have tentacles all over the place and an infinite amount of money to throw at anything. Every few years we get a new sports channel, everyone gets all excited, then it's gone 2 years later. It is what it is.
I can probably do without knowing what Andy roddick thinks of the Jets' QB controversy or Gary Payton's take on whether ARod should apologize.
Looks like I don't get FS1 on my dish package, but can watch FS2. Yay. I don't get NBC Sportsnet either. Looks like I'm staying with ESPN.
It's garbage. Mostly UFC and Nascar right now. And their graphic interface on their news show is horrible - way too many tickers and the color scheme sucks. ESPN is much cleaner and easier to watch.
ESPN is a great sports network. Hard to compete against them. Sure I wish they'd get better "experts" for their shows and spend more time covering all the major sports teams rather than spending half the day on one or two stories (especially given ESPN2 & ESPNNews).
I was surprised to see this on my basic cable with SuddenLink. Which I'm dropping after this month anyways. With NFL Network, Redzone, Encore Play, Starz Play, HBOgo, and a handle full of channels for free....and OTA Texans games up in East Texas.
