The Heat and the Shine

On March 28, 2013, UFC and Fox Sports were married.  That wasn't the day that UFC announced that it was leaving Spike TV.  It wasn't the day that Can Velasquez fought Junior Dos Santos in the first UFC fight on national, broadcast television in the United States.  It was the day that Fox Sports 1 was announced.  For better or for worse -- mostly for worse -- the two have been married ever since. Fox needed big sports properties to create Fox Sports 1.  UFC was not Fox's largest cable sports property -- that would be college football -- but UFC was essential.  UFC was young, cool -- not it's peak of cool, but close enough -- and singular.  UFC fans would follow UFC wherever it went, or so it was assumed.  (The amazing audience for Chael Sonnen's fight on Fox Sports 1's first night was evidence of that.)  UFC provided volume content -- Ultimate Fighter, live events, hype specials, fighter profiles -- which is extraordinarily valuable when la...

It's done, and just in the nick of time.  With about 72 hours to go until an embarrassment of Crystal Pepsian proportions, the deal got done for Fox Sports 1. On Saturday, that means fights.  But what does it mean today?  One thing it means is that Fox took a heck of a hit in opportunity cost. Fox Sports 1 has attractive programming scheduled beyond UFC.  On Saturday night, Fox imports Dan O'Toole and Jay Onrait, witty ex-anchors of TSN SportsCentre, for the nightly highlight show, "Fox Sports Live".  On Monday afternoon, Regis Philbin begins a studio show, "Crowd Goes Wild".  And one week from next Thursday, Fox Sports 1's marquee property (sorry, UFC), college football, kicks off. The problem is that they're all too late.  Today, O'Toole and Onrait don't mean squat. (sorry) And Regis means even less. (not sorry) College football means something, but that is two weeks away.  And the sum total of all of it is too close to nil in the ga...