Fox Sports to launch Fox Sports 1, wage war on ESPN.

The Fox Broadcasting Company has gone from a little-known network to a full-fledged television monolith with entertainment, publishing, and more.  With cable ventures, broadcast networks, and the rights to any number of famous sporting events, Fox has shaped itself to be a force in television in every medium, except for perhaps sports.  When it comes to sports, there’s only one king of the hill, and that’s ESPN.  However, that might be changing.  Fox is planning on launching a national sports network to compete directly with ESPN.  The new network, dubbed Fox Sports 1, will be launching on August 17.

“ESPN, quite frankly, is a machine,” admitted Fox Sports executive vice president Bill Wanger during an event announcing the venture. “They have very consistent ratings, obviously huge revenue.  We’re coming in trying to take on the establishment.”

Fox has a staggering amount of sports offerings at the moment.  Fuel TV and Speed will be getting rebranded as Fox Sports 1 and Fox Sports 2, while the Fox Soccer Channel is going away (Fox Soccer will become either FXX or FX2 depending on Fox branding needs).  There’s also the three-network Fox College Sports suite of channels, 18 regional sports channels, and the whole fleet of Fox Sports international channels.  Now, Fox is combining its many baseball, football, college sports, Ultimate Fighting, and auto racing properties into the same umbrella, which should be an awesome sports network.

As if that wasn’t enough, the network will also be home to a new weekday sports chat show hosted by none other than TV legend Regis Philbin.  So much for retirement, eh Reeg?

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