FUEL to become Fox Sports 2, FX dropping sports...

Fox Sports will debut a second 24-hour sports network this summer.

News Corporation will convert the Fuel cable network into general sports channel ‘Fox Sports 2′ this August, Sports Business Journal reported Monday. The launch of Fox Sports 2 will coincide with the conversion of Speed Channel to Fox Sports 1.

Fox Sports 1 and Fox Sports 2 will be the chief outlets for News Corp. sports programming. FX, which aired college football coverage the past two seasons and previously televised baseball and NASCAR, will no longer carry sporting events. Fox Soccer is expected to be converted into a general entertainment channel.

Currently, Fuel is in 37.6 million television homes — over 43 million fewer than Speed Channel (81.0M). Fox Soccer (42.3M) is actually in more homes than Fuel.

http://www.sportsmediawatch.com/2013/01/sbj-fuel-to-become-fox-sports-2-fx-will-no-longer-carry-sports/

What this means for the UFC is not clear.

Will The Ultimate Fighter be treated as sports entertainment or as reality series? If the former, then it would leave its home on FX, but this seems unlikely.

UFC on FX events will presumably move to FOX Sports 1 (formerly The Speed Channel) and FUEL events will surely remain on the newly branded FOX Sports 2.

It is unknown at this point if the conversion of FUEL to an all sport channel will mean more UFC, less, or the same.

http://www.mixedmartialarts.com/news/435529/FUEL-to-become-Fox-Sports-2-FX-dropping-sports/

Zuffa would probably not be too happy if they are totally off FX which is available in way more homes than Fuel/FOX Sports 2. It is a bit confusing having UFC on three different Fox channels.

That is crazy that Bellator MMA on Spike TV will be available in nearly 3 times the number of homes than the UFC (aside from their 4 FOX shows). Zuffa can't be too happy about this.

lol bellator has a better tv deal than zuffa now. Serves them right. Greedy bastards.

retrocausality wrote:lol bellator has a better tv deal than zuffa now. Serves them right. Greedy bastards.

I know, it's almost too much.

retrocausality wrote:lol bellator has a better tv deal than zuffa now. Serves them right. Greedy bastards.

Love it!

With the rebranding, its fairly likely that those two channels will be available in more homes by the Summer.

Automotive sports and extreme sports are completely niche and didn't exactly warrant to be in many homes. With the new look, they're going to stack it with Big XII and Pac-12 football (Big XII being arguably the second most watched football conference in the nation). There's also opportunities for more baseball telecasts and FOX is heavily interested in the new Catholic basketball conference, which will also be a ratings juggernaut.

UFC will be worse off in the beginning, but FOX has big plans for these channels from what I'm seeing.

What in almighty God's name is the 'new Catholic basketball conference'?

nodogoshi wrote:What in almighty God's name is the 'new Catholic basketball conference'?

They send a lot of players to the NBA. Nuns Basketball Association.

nodogoshi wrote:What in almighty God's name is the 'new Catholic basketball conference'?

http://m.si.com/978281/catholic-7-in-talks-with-fox-about-deal/

if its still a pay channel I wont pay for it, we get all big 12 coverage here locally anyway so im covered for that 1

Maybe they want to be the new espn. But cbs and nbc tried this and failed terribly.

retrocausality wrote:Maybe they want to be the new espn. But cbs and nbc tried this and failed terribly.

CBS and NBC's sports networks were certainly destined to fail. There's just simply not enough exclusive rights worth broadcasting on there, or at least year round.

CBS could have done really well for themselves by hosting a secondary SEC game of the week and major conference basketball but they're stuck with mid major conferences.that will never get viewership outside of hardcore fanbases.

NBC benefitted greatly from the Olympics but that's only every four years. The NHL lockout definitely hurt them too. With everything back in order and now including boxing, they still have a lot of.potential.

FOX is really aiming to come out strong into the new year if they can manage to work out new deals with their top flight conferences.