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Fox Soccer Channel
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Fox Soccer Channel | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Launched | February 7, 2005 |
| Owned by | News Corporation |
| Slogan | Your World, Your Life, Your Game |
| Formerly called | Fox Sports World |
| Website | FoxSoccer.com |
| Availability | |
| Satellite | |
| DirecTV | Channel 613 |
| Dish Network | Channel 149 |
| Cable | |
| Verizon FiOS | Channel 312 |
| Comcast | Channels Vary |
| Time Warner Cable | Channels Vary |
| Charter | Channels Vary |
| Cox Cable | Channels Vary |
| IO Digital Cable (Cablevision) | Channel 142 |
| Midcontinent Communications | Channel 312 |
Fox Soccer Channel is a United States digital cable network, owned by News Corporation, that specializes in soccer. The channel took its current name on February 7, 2005; before then, the network was known as Fox Sports World, Launched Nov. 1, 1997. In 2006, all non-soccer programming was dropped.
Contents |
The channel focuses on soccer throughout the world. Among the countries whose matches it currently televises:
- One match every week from the Primera División, plus a weekly highlights show. The featured Argentine League matches begins on Sunday usually at 3:10 Eastern and is tape-delayed on FSC until 5pm Eastern (with the exception of the Boca Juniors-River Plate superclasico, which will air live). Also, the network broadcasts a dubbed version of Fútbol de Primera, Torneos y Competencias's weekly review show, every Wednesday usually at 9 PM Eastern.
- A weekly highlights package from the A-League, plus live coverage of the A-League Grand Final.
- About four to five live and tape-delayed matches each week from the English Premier League (EPL), plus weekly preview (Premier League World, EPL Preview Show, and FOX Soccer Match Day) and recap (EPL Review and Super Sunday +) shows. FOX Sports International shares EPL TV rights with Setanta Sports North America. Both networks hold exclusive rights to 4-5 live or delayed matches each week in consistent timeslots. Some of FSC's matches air on a subscription-based internet service launched in 2007, particularly when FSC holds the right to show two matches starting at the same time (i.e. at 10am Eastern on Saturdays), or within an hour of each other. FSC may re-air these matches at a later time.
- The season-opening FA Community Shield live.
- FA Cup ties. Some, including one semifinal and the final, are broadcast live on pay-per-view and then re-aired on FSC a few days later.
- England under-21 home matches.
- England national football team home matches. Most weekend matches air live on pay-per-view. FSC rebroadcasts the matches during the following week.
- Dream Team: English football soap opera, which completed its 10th and final season in the UK on June 3, 2007, but is currently only in its 6th on FSC in the United States.
- Exclusive English-language coverage of Serie A for the 2007-2008 through 2009-2010 via an agreement with Media Partners & Silva and SPORTFIVE[1].
- Match hosts include Daniel Arreola and Joe Tutino
- A weekly highlights package from the J. League.
- One weekly match from the Mexican Primera División (First Division) narrated by former Spanish-language sportscaster Daniel Arreola featuring club teams whose home games are normally televised on Azteca América. These teams include Cruz Azul, Pachuca, Puebla, Tecos UAG, Veracruz, Santos Laguna, and Jaguares de Chiapas.
- Major League Soccer (MLS): rights to a package of weekly matches, usually on Saturday nights, through 2010 (beginning in 2007, some matches will be the only ones scheduled during their time-slots), via a deal with Soccer United Marketing (SUM) that includes the 2006 FC Barcelona tour of the US, summer tour matches in 2007-2010, and the 2007-2010 Mexican InterLiga.
- Exclusive rights to United Soccer Leagues matches, including:
- One live match weekly from the second-level USL First Division.
- Occasional regular-season matches from the women's W-League.
- The championship matches of all USL leagues—the First Division, Second Division, Premier Development League, and W-League.
- Up to three live college soccer matches each week in September and October via an agreement with the National Soccer Coaches Association of America (NSCAA). Other matches may air on FOX Sports Net affiliates as part of multi-sport deals between various conferences and those channels.
- Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup final (2006-2010). The competition is the U.S. equivalent of the English FA Cup.
- United States men's national soccer team and United States women's national soccer team: Second-choice of matches after ESPN selects the matches which fit its schedule.
- Major Indoor Soccer League: Rights to a weekly game broadcasted live, mainly on Friday nights.
- UEFA:
- Live coverage of the UEFA Cup starting with the quarterfinal round, with 6 (out of 8) quarterfinal matches, all 4 semifinal matches, and the final through May 2009.
- Live coverage of the UEFA Super Cup through August 2009.
- Live coverage of the UEFA Women's Championship.
- Live qualifiers for the UEFA European Football Championship and FIFA World Cup via sublicense from Setanta Sports North America.
- CONCACAF: Live coverage of many matches from the CONCACAF Champions' Cup, including any that involve MLS teams. FSC also broadcast the 2007 CONCACAF Gold Cup (matches involving the U.S. only, plus the final) and 2006 Women's Gold Cup.
- CONMEBOL: Live and tape-delayed coverage of selected Copa Libertadores and Copa Sudamericana matches.
- FIFA:
- Club World Cup through December 2008.
- Through 2006, FSC aired several other FIFA events (see "Past programming" section immediately below). However, ESPN has acquired the US English-language television rights to all FIFA events except for the Club World Cup (whose rights are not sold by FIFA), from 2007 through 2015.
- Club World Cup through December 2008.
In the past, FSC also aired the following:
- France: Ligue 1 through the 2005-2006 season. Ligue 1 coverage moved to Setanta Sports North America effective with the 2006-2007 season.
- Germany: First Bundesliga through the 2005-2006 season. Bundesliga coverage moved to GolTV effective with the 2006-2007 season.
- Spain: Selected La Liga matches that notably did not have FC Barcelona, Valencia CF, Real Madrid or Atlético Madrid, four of Spain's biggest clubs, involved in them. Coverage was moved to GolTV effective 2004-5, where all teams can be shown.
- Netherlands: Eredivisie in the 2004-2005 season. Coverage is now on Setanta Sports North America.
- United States: A Major League Soccer highlight show entitled MLS Wrap.
- FIFA:
- Confederations Cup through the 2005 season.
- FIFA World Youth Championship, now the FIFA U-20 World Cup, through 2005.
- FIFA U-17 World Championship, now the FIFA U-17 World Cup, through 2005.
- Super 14 Rugby, now on Setanta Sports North America.
- Aussie Rules Football.
- The 2003 Rugby World Cup (the 2007 Rugby World Cup was on Setanta Sports North America).
FSC picks up the feed from its corporate cousin, Sky Sports News in the United Kingdom. In 2007, FSC began running the feed live at 2 a.m., noon and 7 p.m. Eastern Time. This arrangement dates back to its days as Fox Sports World, and serves largely to wrap-up the day's events.
FSC's flagship studio program is the Fox Soccer Report, anchored by Carlos Machado, Jeremy St. Louis, Mitch Peacock and Derek Taylor. The show is produced by Fox Sports World Canada, a Canadian international sports network owned by CanWest Global Communications (parent of Global Television Network). The show was formerly called the Fox Sports World Report, which also featured occasional news and highlights of Formula 1, Rugby, and other sports prior to the format change. It airs nightly at 10 p.m. Eastern (or after a live prime-time match- though highlights of that game usually cannot be edited in time for inclusion), with a few re-airs overnight and during the morning.
Most of FSC's coverage that originates outside the CONCACAF region (North America, Central America, Caribbean) consists of picking up international broadcast feeds to which FSC has U.S. broadcast rights. All of FSC's South American coverage, including the Argentine highlights show, is overdubbed in English by FSC announcers (having originally been produced in whole or in part by Fox Sports International), as is most game coverage from Italy. The Australian League highlights show is produced by FOX Sports' Australian-unit. The English coverage generally comes to FSC direct from the marketing agencies who produce the match feeds and magazine shows.
The network's soccer coverage is not limited to game play; FSC airs reruns of Dream Team, a British soap opera that airs in the UK on FSC's corporate cousin Sky One and focuses on a fictional Premiership team (although several seasons behind Sky One). The channel also televises a live soccer talk-show, Fox Football Fone-in (formerly Fox Football Friday), featuring viewer calls and predictions for that weekend's Premier League matches.
In 2006, Fox Soccer Channel announced that they had dropped coverage of other sports other than soccer. Amongst the leagues dropped were Super 14 rugby union, the Australian Football League (the principal Australian rules football league), and the Australian National Rugby League. The Super 14 and Australian Football League games now reside on fellow niche-sport network, Setanta Sports. In return, Setanta has given FSC the rights to some national team matches that would not otherwise air live.
Fox Sports World filled out its schedule with an eclectic mix of programming; among the sports featured (either in anthology form or actual events) were motorsports, cricket, pool, darts, and extreme sports. It also aired the Final Four of the Euroleague in basketball; that league is now more extensively covered by NBA TV.
However, FSC has not yet filled out its day with sports programming; the morning hours are usually the province of infomercials as well as the random half-hour in between games on some days.
Since its relaunch as FSC, the channel has had various well-known people in and out of the soccer world do promos. The first of these aired on the Fox network pregame show for Super Bowl XXXIX. It featured Freddy Adu, Clint Mathis and Mia Hamm giving the channel's slogan: "Your world, your life, your game." Since then, other celebrities have popped up doing FSC promos including David Beckham, Victoria Beckham, Jon Stewart, Kobe Bryant, Simon LeBon and Andy Taylor of Duran Duran, Andrew Fletcher and Martin Gore of Depeche Mode, Paul Rodgers of Bad Company, Ziggy Marley and even Paris Hilton. Two additional spots featured Eddie Pope and Chris Albright of the U.S. national team, but they were no longer aired after the conclusion of the 2006 World Cup.
Ethan Zohn, winner of Survivor: Africa in 2001, hosted FC Fox, a show mostly focused on youth soccer, for a few years. The show has now been retitled and is generally done with voice-over narration.
- Official Site
- Sky Sports
- Official Store of Fox Soccer Channel
- Fox Soccer Channel Schedule on SoccerTV.com
