Remember how FOX Sports 1 was supposed to challenge ESPN for sports ratings supremacy when it debuted at the end of the summer? Well, that hasn’t happened.
What should have been a place for people to escape the Rick Reillys of the world in favor of non-stop, ESPN News-type highlights is instead your destination for an endless carousel of ex-jocks trying to be Vegas-lounge stand-up comedians. Oh, and there’sRegis. Lots and lots of Regis.
Of course, sports broadcasting Rome wasn’t built in a night. And FOX is well aware of this.
“The ratings side has been more mixed,” said 21st Century FOX COO Chase Carey to the Hollywood Reporter this week. “The programming we are producing is a work in progress.”
It’s already quite apparent that ESPN no longer considers FOX a threat due to its new, tremendous broadcast formula of “awkward sells.”
Don’t believe me? Since the launch of FOX Sports 1, ESPN has given us the following:
– The Marshal Mathers LP of awkwardness starring Marshal Mathers.
– The Jameis Winston-Heather Cox blow off.
– And finally this week, the Mona Lisa off “what-the-hell?!” sports TV – the Shawne Merriman walk-off on something called, “Highly Questionable.”
