Fox Sports

Fox Sports is the brand name for a number of sports channels, broadcast divisions, programming, and other media around the world that are either controlled or partially owned by the family of Rupert Murdoch. These assets are held mainly by 21st Century Fox, with the exception of the operations in Australia, which are part of News Corp Australia. (21st Century Fox and News Corp are the two companies resulting from the breakup of the larger News Corporation in mid-2013; the Murdoch family retains voting control of both entities.)

The name originates from the Fox Broadcasting Company in the United States, which in turn was derived from the name of the Fox Film Corporation (later 20th Century Fox). The Fox Sports name has since been used in 21st Century Fox's and News Corp's other sports media assets around the world.

Channels and divisions

International

Fox Sports (United States)

Fox Sports is the programming division of the Fox Broadcasting Company, owned by 21st Century Fox, that is responsible for sports broadcasts on the network, and its dedicated regional and national sports cable channels. The flagship entity of 21st Century Fox's Fox Sports Media Group division, it was formed in 1994 with Fox's acquisition of broadcast rights to National Football League (NFL) games. In subsequent years, it has televised the National Hockey League (1994–1999), Major League Baseball (1996–present), NASCAR (2001–present), Bowl Championship Series (2007–2010), the USGA Championships (2015–present), and the FIFA World Cup (starting in 2018).

History

When the Fox Broadcasting Company launched in October 1986, the network's management, having seen how sports programming (in particular, soccer events) played a critical role in the growth of the British satellite service BSkyB, determined that sports would be the type of programming that would ascend Fox to a major network status the quickest; as a result, Fox tried to attract a professional football package to the network. In 1987, after ABC initially hedged on renewing its contract with the National Football League (NFL) for the television rights to Monday Night Football, Fox made an offer for the package at the same price that ABC had been paying at the time – about $13 million per game. However, partly due to the fact that Fox had yet to establish itself as a major network, the NFL decided to resume negotiations with ABC, with the two parties eventually agreeing to a new contract, keeping what was the crown jewel of the league's television broadcasts on that network (where it remained until 2006, when MNF moved to sister network ESPN as part of a contract that also saw NBC gain the Sunday Night Football package).

Fox Sports (Netherlands)

Fox Sports is a Dutch group of sports channels, owned by Eredivisie Media & Marketing CV in which Fox International Channels Benelux has 51% ownership. Fox Sports launched on 1 August 2013. Fox Sports offers 6 channels, Video-on-demand services and Fox Sports GO. Its main competitor is the Dutch premium television service Sport1.

Channels

External links

References

Fox Sports Racing

Fox Sports Racing (formerly Speed) is a motorsports-oriented cable network owned by the Fox Sports division of 21st Century Fox. The network launched on August 17, 2013 as a continuation of the former cable network Speed for North American markets outside of the United States, including Canada and the Caribbean.

The network primarily simulcasts racing events from Fox Sports 1 and Fox Sports 2, which would be otherwise unavailable to international markets, with the remainder of its schedule filled with reruns of Speed's previous reality series. The network retained the previous Speed branding until February 20, 2015.

History

Prior to its replacement with the mainstream sports network Fox Sports 1, the motorsports-oriented network Speed was also carried outside of the United States, particularly in Canada. Shortly after its launch as Speedvision, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) added the network to its list of foreign cable networks approved for carriage on Canadian cable and satellite providers in 1997. Prior to August 2013, Canadian viewers saw a largely identical schedule as the U.S. channel, although some programming, particularly live Formula 1 events, were blacked out to protect TSN, which holds domestic broadcast rights to F1 events (under CRTC rules, foreign services must own Canadian broadcast rights to the content they air). However, this point became moot when NBCSN obtained rights to F1 events beginning with the 2013 season, as that network is not available in Canada.