http://awfulannouncing.com/2015/fox-spor...ation.html

FS1 is making fairly significant cut backs. Will lead to layoffs.

(06-30-2015 12:39 PM)GEAGLESJAG Wrote:  http://awfulannouncing.com/2015/fox-spor...ation.html

FS1 is making fairly significant cut backs. Will lead to layoffs.

Quote:]Awful Announcing has learned through multiple sources that Fox Sports 1 is making cuts to its news operation.

[quoteWe’ve also learned that Fox Sports 1 is planning on cutting back on live reporting for events it doesn’t have the rights to air[/quote]

Does FS1 have the rights to air all CUSA sports? If so, could this actually be a good thing for CUSA?

(06-30-2015 01:15 PM)monarx Wrote:  Does FS1 have the rights to air all CUSA sports? If so, could this actually be a good thing for CUSA?

It's irrelevant to C-USA. It's referring to sending people to cover the NBA finals in person, for example. They'll just do satellite interviews and such instead.

espn been doing studio play by play for a couple years now. Not at all games but some....the play by play guys sit in a studio and gets the same view as we do and do their play by play from that. Probably games that are produced by the home schools and espn picks up.

(06-30-2015 01:17 PM)MUsince96 Wrote:  

(06-30-2015 01:15 PM)monarx Wrote:  Does FS1 have the rights to air all CUSA sports? If so, could this actually be a good thing for CUSA?

It's irrelevant to C-USA. It's referring to sending people to cover the NBA finals in person, for example. They'll just due satellite interviews and such instead.

I'll disagree slightly. I think it has some relevance to CUSA because it seems Fox believes the way forward is through live sports acquisition and promotion of their properties. That is good news for CUSA's upcoming media deal because Fox is already a partner and CUSA could realistically go exclusively to Fox with our top tier rights.

I found this article for sports network rating for week ending June 28 2015.

FS1 is still getting killed by ESPN but doing well against ESPN2.

(07-01-2015 10:26 AM)FIU4Ever Wrote:  I found this article for sports network rating for week ending June 28 2015.

Code:

Primetime rankings for the week ending June 28, 2015:

Net    Viewers (000)    Viewers 18-49 (000)
ESPN    1481     627
FS1    927     447
ESP2    278     96
MLBN    217     64
GOLF    149     43
NBCS    136     49
BEIN    110     57
ENN    93     43
NFLN    79     39
ESNU    60     24
NBAT    58     29
FS2    50     18
UDN    49     27
FOXD    35     19

FS1 is still getting killed by ESPN but doing well against ESPN2.

FoxSports1 will have been on the air 2 years in August. September marks 36 years for ESPN.

If Fox Sports will "SHOW US THE MONEY"; I think we can make the deal! But I want some assurance that we will actually be televised on FS1 or FS2 and not place on the shelf every time a Big12 or other game is available to Fox. Nor, do I wan to be for Fox what the MAC is for ESPN! No Weeknight games! CUSA needs exposure!

(07-01-2015 11:00 AM)BlueRaiderBoy Wrote:  If Fox Sports will "SHOW US THE MONEY"; I think we can make the deal! But I want some assurance that we will actually be televised on FS1 or FS2 and not place on the shelf every time a Big12 or other game is available to Fox. Nor, do I wan to be for Fox what the MAC is for ESPN! No Weeknight games! CUSA needs exposure!

It's all about developing viewer habit. ESPN has trained people to go to their channel to see live sports. Fox needs to up the amount of content on FS1 and FS2 to develop that habit.

ESPN started out by showing tractor pulls and cliff divers, give FS1 a chance to develop, they will make an impact.

I agree. FS1 is already doing well against ESPN and it has only been in existence for two years.

I like FS1 and root for it to keep on trucking!

Fox Sports is only semi-competitive when they're running baseball vs baseball against ESPN... otherwise, during the rest of the year - THEY'VE BEEN GETTING SLAUGHTERED... pulling in terrible numbers. These cuts are in a response to having some shows pulling ZERO rating points during the rest of their schedule. People are just not tuning away from Sports Center and ESPN News for their sporting news.

Their FWWC coverage has been really good. Looking forward to their mens World Cup coverage.

My understanding is the ratings have been very good as well.

(07-01-2015 08:48 PM)IceJus10 Wrote:  Fox Sports is only semi-competitive when they're running baseball vs baseball against ESPN... otherwise, during the rest of the year - THEY'VE BEEN GETTING SLAUGHTERED... pulling in terrible numbers. These cuts are in a response to having some shows pulling ZERO rating points during the rest of their schedule. People are just not tuning away from Sports Center and ESPN News for their sporting news.

Actually baseball isn't one of the places they are as competitive and they can't run national games on FS1 against ESPN. Just local TV/regional games on FOX Sports Net affiliates.

FOX can only do exclusive games on Saturdays between two teams who have their local rights held by FOX (ie. Tigers vs. Twins or Braves vs. Marlins). Have to allow for regional co-exists for a lot of large market teams (Dodgers, Giants, Astros, Orioles, Nationals) and some small market ones (Pirates, Mariners).

The launch of FS1 and FS2 was botched by some execs that allegedly didn't get along and have since been moved to other parts of the company. Will Jamie Horowitz (former ESPN exec producer hired at FOX to head up studio programming), who was not a decision maker in these cuts, make a difference? Not sure.

Live events on FS1, in terms of ratings, have done a lot better.
* MLS is up vs. the package that NBCSN had. ESPN is up as well. Much of this is due to consistent scheduling of TV windows (Sundays) compared to NBCSN's being all over the place and at od times.
* They gained a lot of live NASCAR racing from February-June for the Xfinity & Sprint Cup, which draw pretty well
* US Open, while panned for its quality of coverage, drew a decent number.
* Women's World Cup has done extremely well.
* Champions League & FA Cup matches were up overall by a healthy margin.

One down spot: Big East basketball. I think they assumed it was a bigger draw that it is. College basketball as a whole doesn't draw great numbers. If you're getting a 0.2 on a game, you're not doing bad. Only the best of the best really draw well.

And in a few cases, those national MLB games have done decently because they've had lead-ins. For most of June, FS1 has been without MLB due to the NASCAR, WWC and US Open coverage.

They've added Bundesliga starting this year, which will run up with their Gold Cup, International Champions Cup and US men's soccer friendlies & qualifiers.

The one guy pissed off in all of this is Mike Francesa, whose show gets bounced or outright pre-empted. And its kinda fun to hear him *****, but its also true that the pre-emptions, usually NASCAR or soccer, usually outrate in on at least a 2:1 basis.

Did they miss the mark in straight up competing with ESPN? Yep and it was too lofty of a goal to pronounce publicly. ESPN2 should have been a starting point and ESPN's also in cost cutting mode. See the reports about Disney's earnings incurring a slight drag due to ESPN operating costs (Mike & Mike are not moving to NYC anymore) and some firmer stances in contract negotiation (Olbermann). Some of those cost increases at ESPN happened to be in response to FOX starting FS1. They went out and hired Olbermann, hired Whitlock, made some programming changes, and now they're having to look at the long term viability of maintaining those programming decisions.

(07-02-2015 10:19 AM)mattsarz Wrote:  

(07-01-2015 08:48 PM)IceJus10 Wrote:  Fox Sports is only semi-competitive when they're running baseball vs baseball against ESPN... otherwise, during the rest of the year - THEY'VE BEEN GETTING SLAUGHTERED... pulling in terrible numbers. These cuts are in a response to having some shows pulling ZERO rating points during the rest of their schedule. People are just not tuning away from Sports Center and ESPN News for their sporting news.

Actually baseball isn't one of the places they are as competitive and they can't run national games on FS1 against ESPN. Just local TV/regional games on FOX Sports Net affiliates.

FOX can only do exclusive games on Saturdays between two teams who have their local rights held by FOX (ie. Tigers vs. Twins or Braves vs. Marlins). Have to allow for regional co-exists for a lot of large market teams (Dodgers, Giants, Astros, Orioles, Nationals) and some small market ones (Pirates, Mariners).

The launch of FS1 and FS2 was botched by some execs that allegedly didn't get along and have since been moved to other parts of the company. Will Jamie Horowitz (former ESPN exec producer hired at FOX to head up studio programming), who was not a decision maker in these cuts, make a difference? Not sure.

Live events on FS1, in terms of ratings, have done a lot better.
* MLS is up vs. the package that NBCSN had. ESPN is up as well. Much of this is due to consistent scheduling of TV windows (Sundays) compared to NBCSN's being all over the place and at od times.
* They gained a lot of live NASCAR racing from February-June for the Xfinity & Sprint Cup, which draw pretty well
* US Open, while panned for its quality of coverage, drew a decent number.
* Women's World Cup has done extremely well.
* Champions League & FA Cup matches were up overall by a healthy margin.

One down spot: Big East basketball. I think they assumed it was a bigger draw that it is. College basketball as a whole doesn't draw great numbers. If you're getting a 0.2 on a game, you're not doing bad. Only the best of the best really draw well.

And in a few cases, those national MLB games have done decently because they've had lead-ins. For most of June, FS1 has been without MLB due to the NASCAR, WWC and US Open coverage.

They've added Bundesliga starting this year, which will run up with their Gold Cup, International Champions Cup and US men's soccer friendlies & qualifiers.

The one guy pissed off in all of this is Mike Francesa, whose show gets bounced or outright pre-empted. And its kinda fun to hear him *****, but its also true that the pre-emptions, usually NASCAR or soccer, usually outrate in on at least a 2:1 basis.

Did they miss the mark in straight up competing with ESPN? Yep and it was too lofty of a goal to pronounce publicly. ESPN2 should have been a starting point and ESPN's also in cost cutting mode. See the reports about Disney's earnings incurring a slight drag due to ESPN operating costs (Mike & Mike are not moving to NYC anymore) and some firmer stances in contract negotiation (Olbermann). Some of those cost increases at ESPN happened to be in response to FOX starting FS1. They went out and hired Olbermann, hired Whitlock, made some programming changes, and now they're having to look at the long term viability of maintaining those programming decisions.

Plus their college coverage is hard to judge simply because what content they own is shared. ESPN gets the cream picks of ACC and Big 10, ESPN splits top SEC with CBS, ESPN splits top Big XII and Pac-12 with Fox.

The SEC and Big 10 have for the last decade tended to be the TV ratings beasts and Fox has no content at all from either.

Other than the news shows we've not seen a lot of apples to apples with FS1 vs. ESPN.

(07-02-2015 10:19 AM)mattsarz Wrote:  Did they miss the mark in straight up competing with ESPN? Yep and it was too lofty of a goal to pronounce publicly. ESPN2 should have been a starting point and ESPN's also in cost cutting mode. See the reports about Disney's earnings incurring a slight drag due to ESPN operating costs (Mike & Mike are not moving to NYC anymore) and some firmer stances in contract negotiation (Olbermann). Some of those cost increases at ESPN happened to be in response to FOX starting FS1. They went out and hired Olbermann, hired Whitlock, made some programming changes, and now they're having to look at the long term viability of maintaining those programming decisions.

FS1 was late to the game. ESPN had a 30 year head start. ESPN has a proven brand name. ESPN has a huge content advantage that is contractually committed to them for the next decade. This content is expensive and has cut into ESPN's profit, but they still made $4.5 billion for Disney in 2014. They are still a cash cow for Disney.